Black Like Me †Book Report Essay

For the book report, I larn the book Black Like Me by fundament Howard griffon vulture. The story takes rank in 1959 and revolves around a blank slicekind who decides to go to the fertile South undercover as a sinister man to feat to understand what re whollyy goes on at that place. This man, John griffin, document his expedition from stemma to end in order to make an effort to end racial segregation. For seven weeks, he lived and experienced the horrors that a inglorious man lived both day during that time. He quickly learned that he no nightlong had the selfsame(prenominal) privileges as he did as a white man.He could no longer go into any(prenominal) store he cherished and had to walk miles before finding someone who would let him buy a glass of water or to use the bathroom. Reading this book, my eye were opened to all the disadvantages the disastrous man faced that I always comprehend about in school, still never really understood. John Griffin moved awa y from his home and family in Mansfield, Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana to channel his research. His motivation was for racial justice and for his frustration of not understanding the down(p) experience. At this time, no somber man in his responsibility sound judgment would tell a white man how horrible spiritedness was for him.Since Griffin was a white man, interviewing blacks would not give him a true check of their invigoration. He decides to go with the only way he will unfeignedly find out what its want to be a black in the South to change the color of his skin. He went through antithetic medical treatments to accomplish this. To change his skin color from white to black, he took pills to darken his skin, and also used skin dyes. He thusly could well pass through New Orleans streets as a total darkness. He befriended a shoeshine who had been shining his exact same shoes when he was a white man.The shoeshine is delighted with Griffins project and opens the life of a black man up to him. The shoeshine taught him how to act, talk, and e very(prenominal)thing else that he needed to know. deviation into this study, Griffin, knew he would run into prejudice, oppression, and many hardships, but he did not actually know how bad it was until now. He was no longer allowed to use any bathroom he pleased. Sometimes he would hold to walk all the way across towns slewsfolk, even when there was a bathroom right by him, because he could not use a white mans facilities.Throughout his experience as a black man he deals with insults and struggles on a daily basis. afterward being in New Orleans for a piece of music, he decides to go to the heart of manuscript where racial prejudice is even worse for blacks. Griffin notices that the black communities there seemed to open given up hope of ever being equal, and he begins to notice the same looking across his own face. The whites were the main contributors to this dismission of hope. For example, when he was riding the bus into Mississippi they took a ten min bathroom break.The bus driver refused to let the black passengers off because he did not want to start out to go round them up when they left. afterwards witnessing this sense of defeat in Mississippi and how terrible the whites were, he decides to embark to Montgomery, Alabama where he is shocked at what he finds. In Montgomery, the black community is recharged with determination. They practice passive resistance a realisest the racist laws and rules set against them.They are filled with hope and the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They are not afraid to go to jail or face the other consequences that whitethorn lie ahead. After seeing this, he begins to switch back and frontward between being a black man and then a white man the very next day. He visits the very same places as a white man and is treat with the greatest respect, while as a black man he was tough with worry and suspicion. He was able to go in to the restaurants where blacks were not even allowed to stop to look at the menu. Switching between black and white opened his eyes to how society treated blacks and whites at the time.One day he was a disgrace and the next he was treated like a king. After this long trip, he decided to let his skin fully recall white and go back home. After looking over his nurture and organizing it he decides it is finally time for the public to know the truth. He then publishes his findings and goes on television for interviews. He is asked to speak on many shows. numerous people support him and his findings, but the people in his home town do not offer much support. People in his town begin to turn on him and threaten his life and the lives of his family members.He asks the police to watch his house so his family is not harmed. It gets so bad that they have to leave for a while. When they come back, nothing has changed. Someone in town hangs a dummy of him on Main Street. The dummy is half black and half white and there was a sign on it that rake John Griffin. He decided to move his family away once and for all to prevent anyone from getting hurt. This story gave me an within look of what it was like to be both a black and a white soul during 1959 in the south. I was unable to put the book down because I was so intrigued.I have never heard the black souls view to racial prejudice before. This story took my breath away. My favorite part of this book is when John Griffin (1960) describes how you are treated found on your skin color. I was the same man, whether white or black. until now when I was white, I received the brotherly-love smiles and the privileges from whites and the hate stares or obsequiousness from the Negroes. And when I was a Negro, the whites judged me fit for the junk heap, while the Negroes treated me with great fanaticism. (p. 126) I am shocked from what I read in this book.The author was treated completely different as a white man than he w as as a black man. When he was a white man, he receives respect and courtesy from the other whites, but suspicion and fear from the blacks. When he was a black man, he receives hatred and hostility from the whites, but warmth and generosity from his fellow blacks. It surprised me that you could sense these distinct feelings toward him while reading. It was to the highest degree like I was living it myself. It is crazy how cold-hearted some of the white people acted towards him.Some had sympathy in their eyes, but others were set to make his life horrible. This book just goes to show you how truly bad it was for the blacks during segregation. It is proof of it, and the stories of John Griffin are more realistic than any told or documented before. Black Like Me was not made up to sympathize the blacks or as an overreaction. Its the truth that Griffin personally witnessed and lived. The whites dehumanized the blacks and treated them like savages. Towards the end of the book he was wal king down a highway for miles hoping someone would pick him up.During the day, not a single white person would pick him up. This all changed during the night. That night, he always had a ride. He realized after a while, that the whites only picked him up to hear about the black mans sex life. This disgusts me. These men were asking him horrific questions, and if he did not give him a sufficient answer, he would be kicked out of the vehicle. The questions that they were asking him would never be asked to his friends. This part of the book illustrates how the whites did not care for the black mans pride and instead cherished to dehumanize him.Reading this book, Black Like Me, opened my eyes to the terrors that the black people faced in the South during 1959. I also gain an understanding of how whites were treated in comparison to blacks. John Griffin was very brave for taking on this project and publishing his findings. This must have taken a lot of courage, but his work helped many people. Without this inside look at the treatment of blacks in the South, we might never have known how truly horrible it was. Yes, there are other stories, but this is a full account of one mans journey in and out of the heart of segregation.