Black Like Me is the story of a white journalist who with the help of medication goes throughout the south as a black man, completely giving up his privileged life as a white man. In doing this he understood that he was not only endangering his life but the life of those around him including his family, people he came into contact with, and anyone who knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. On his journey, he realizes that being black was a lot tougher than he thought it would be. He found that the word "nigger" seemed to "leap out with electric clarity. You hear it and it always stings. And always it cast the person using it into a category of brute ignorance."(Black Like Me, pg.26) So is going through the south as a black man the only way to realize the hardships of a black man in the late 1950s, or is there another way for a people to get along and learn that we are all the same no matter what our race, nationality, and skin color happens to be. Will we realizes that we are all one big happy family and that although we may not like each other we realize that it is possible for us to all get along.
Mr. Griffin journey began in his office at home in Mansfield, Texas. He had a dilemma facing him " If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South, what adjustments would he have to make? What is it like to experience discrimination based on skin color, something over which one has no control?" (Black Like Me, pg. 7) This was the question facing him on this night. How but by only becoming a Negro could he open the lines of communication that did not exist between the two races. There was no other way his mind was made up. Driving to Fort Worth and talking to a friend of his George Levitan the owner of the Negro magazine Sepia, explained his idea to him. At first thought, he believed it a crazy idea, but was willing to help. After consulting a few more people and telling his wife and children, he left for Louisiana where he found a doctor who was willing to help and began taking treatments to change the color of his skin.
