1. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
“One of the deepest, most penetrating documents yet set down on the racial question.”
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by
John Howard Griffin

2. Table of Contents John Howard Griffin Biography II. Black Like Me
John Howard Griffin
Biography   
II. Black Like Me
Topic
Purpose
Overview
Summary
Characters
Experiences
Examples
Quotes/Statements
JHG’s Final Account
III. Consequences
Personal
Deeds
March on Washington
Birmingham Bombing/Selma
Freedom Rides
Improvements
Civil Rights Act 1964
Voting Rights Act 1965

3. I. John Howard Griffin born in Dallas, Texas in 1920
started studies in France at the age of 15
worked for the French Resistance
disabled in
died on Sept. 9, 1980 due to diabetes

4. II. Black Like Me Purpose:
“The Journey was undertaken to discover if America was involved in the practice of racism against black Americans. Most white Americans denied any taint of racism and really believed that in this land we judged every man by his qualities as a human individual. In those days, any mention of racism brought to the public’s mind the Nazi suppression of Jewish people, the concentration camps, the gas chambers – and certainly, we protested, we were not like that.
If we could not accept our somewhat different practice of racist suppression of black Americans, how could we ever hope to correct it? Our experience with the Nazis had shown one thing: where racism is practiced, it damages the whole community, not just the victim group.
Were we racists or were we not? That was the important thing to discover. Black men told me that the only way a white man could hope to understand anything about this reality was to wake up some morning in a black man’s skin. I decided to try this in order to test this one thing…”
-John Howard Griffin, Epilogue

5. Black Like Me - the movie of 1964
Experiences
Black Like Me -
the movie of 1964

6. Quotes
“They don’t do it to you because you’re Johnny – they don’t even know you. They do it against your Negro-ness”
“They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can’t deserve our rights.”
JHG’s Final Account
“I concluded that, as in everything else, the atmosphere of a place is entirely different for Negro and white. The Negro sees and reacts differently not because he is Negro, but because he is suppressed. Fear dims even the sunlight.
“We must return to them their lawful rights, assure equality of justice – and then everybody leave everybody else to hell alone. Paternalistic1 – we show our prejudice in our paternalism – we downgrade their dignity.”
——————
1) A policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities.

7. III. Consequences
March on Washington
(1963)

8. The Birmingham Bombing (1963)
III. Consequences
The Birmingham Bombing
(1963)

9. III. Consequences
Selma
(1965)

10. III. Consequences
The Freedom Rides

11. The Civil Rights Act 1964 / The Voting Rights Act 1965
Lyndon B. Johnson signing the „Civil Rights Act“ in 1964
Lyndon B. Johnson & Martin Luther King Jr. celebrating the „Voting Rights Act“ in 1965

12. Literacy Test?!
P.D. told the story of the Negro who went to register. The white man taking his application gave him the standard literacy tests:
“What is the first line of the thirty-second paragraph of the United States Constitution?” he asked.
The applicant answered perfectly.
“Name the eleventh President of the United States and his entire cabinet.”
The applicant answered correctly.
Finally, unable to trip him up, the white man asked,
“Can you read and write?”
The applicant wrote his name and was then handed a newspaper in Chinese to test his reading. He studied it carefully for a time.
“Well, can you read it?”
“I can read the headline, but I can’t make out the body text.”
Incredulous, the white man said: “You can read that headline?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve got the meaning all right.”
“What’s it say?”
“It says this is one Negro in Mississippi who’s not going to get to vote this year.”