Black Like Me

A detailed Summary of Black Like Me


I just finished reading the book Black Like Me by John Griffin. The book is about John Griffin and his quest to show that the color of your skin matters. John is journalist from Texas and under goes treatment to temporarily dye his skin black. This is so he knows how it is to be a black man and what they go though. This book was written in the late fifties to early sixties.

Before John goes though the process of dying his skin, he talks to his wife about it and she fully supports him wanting to do it, But the one thing that upsets him is during the time that he is going to be gone their daughter is going to have a birthday. He also has his doctor tell the authorities and the FBI what he is going to do, so that if anything goes wrong they know.

During this period of time being a Negro is very dangerous and they are highly looked down on, too. So John doing by doing this, is putting him- self in great danger, as well as his family, in danger when the article that he is going to write is published. He and


The first person that John meets is Sterling Williams an elderly

One thing that he realizes unlike white people blacks are ALWAYS nice and polite to each other. They are never rude or hostile.

shoe shining man. John tells Sterling about John's experiment and the man promises to help him as much as possible and keep it a secret. Sterling also helps him by taking him to the bath room and getting him to shave his arms because his hair on his arms are light and stick out. Then later that night John has an encounter by a young white man who is stalking him, trying to beat him up, but John gets out with out a confrontation by calling his bluff. That night John has trouble finding a place to sleep. He mentions the smell of the ghetto. John's second day as a Negro man he encounters more racial problems, but this one is on the trolley. Then he also realizes how hard it is to be a Negro man because of not being able to just go up to a concession stand and ask for a glass of water is HIGHLY forbidden and then he has a very hard time

Some common words found in the essay are:
Sterling John's, John Griffin, John Negro, Sterling Williams, , white people, john griffin, night john,

Approximate Word count = 696
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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