Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Attempt
Review: Black Like Me extracted a gamut of emotions from me; at times I was extremely proud that John Griffin wanted to understand the reality of living in black skin. While on the other hand I thought why what are we (black people) a science project.Clearly as you read the book your questions change and your initial emotions are either magnified or remain the same. One question blanketed me throughout the book, why leave your privileged life to walk in the shoes of a black man or any minority? This classical non-fiction journal of the writers experience was captivating and educational. Walking behind Johns' eyes allowed me to see my people and the actions of others in a different light. The author captures the accents and slang in such a way I could hear the characters speaking. It is my hope that many different people will read Black Like Me, and realize that people are "human individuals" the actions of some or one does not represent the total race.
Missy
Rating: 
Summary: I read this for school, but I'd read it again anytime!
Review: Black Like Me was not written in the interests so much as to move and startle the reader as it was to inform him; yet it has accomplished both. I know it has touched millions, and the common feeling of these readers, including me, is that this story needed to be told. I believe it didn't need to be shared just with the people of that time, to help them understand, to begin closing the gap between races. I feel it was meant to be shared with those who have come later, and those who have yet to arrive. It is often said that if one doesn't learn from history, it is doomed to repeat itself, and this book will be needed to remind generations far beyond of the tragedies of that time, and how never to let them happen again. John Griffin wrote Black Like Me in working for the dream of black and white equality, in the hopes of getting the truth to people everywhere. He needed to uncover the real story behind racism in the South for himself, but with his quest came persecution and hatred of another kind; anger directed towards him and his ideas and truths, not senseless anger like the racism he encountered in his travels. I admire and enormously commend Griffin for taking such a great task on himself, in spite of the fires he knew he would spark with his enlightenment.
Rating: 
Summary: Black Like Me
Review: This book was very monotonous. After awhile it was the same thing over and over. I liked the idea more than the book. It just wasn't very interesting. I think it would have been better if they'd made the whole story up. It tells you the things you already know. It's just a black man walking around doing nothing interesting.
But it is classic. So I suppose you should read it whether you want to or not.
Rating:
Summary: An unforgettable look at the worst of the Deep South
Review: As I write this review I have my old copy of Black Like Me in front of me. It's a Panther paperback, printed in 1964, bought by my parents, and found by my sister and myself on their shelves a few years later. I can still remember the shock when I read this, at the age of perhaps eleven, at realizing just how inhuman people could be because of something as seemingly trivial as skin colour. Griffin spent a little over a month--parts of November and December, 1959--with his skin artificially darkened by medication. In that time he traveled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, finding out at first hand what it is like to be treated as a second-class citizen--or, as he says, as a tenth-class citizen. Everyone now know the story of the big injustices, the lynchings, the civil rights cases, and for most people those are now just another page in the history text book. Griffin's experiences take the daily evils of racism and thrust them in your face, just as they were thrust in his--the rudeness of the clerk when he tried to pay for a train ticket with a big bill; the difficulty he had in finding someone who would cash a traveler's check for a Negro; the bus-driver who wouldn't let any blacks off the bus to use the restrooms; the white man who followed him at night and threatened to mug him. I've heard people worry that this is the white experience of racism: that whites can read this book and feel good because a white person felt the pain too. I'm white, so I don't know that I can judge that argument completely impartially, but I can tell you that this book profoundly shaped my views on racism, and that any book that can do what this book did for me is a book that is good to have around. One more thing. I've said a lot about how powerful, and how influential the book is. I should add that it is also a gripping story. Though Griffin only spends a month with dark skin, by the time you finish the book it feels like an eternity. A wonderful read, and a truly amazing story.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Snapshot of Americana
Review: The story is well described in all of the other reviews so I will not rehash it yet again. A very interesting look from a unique perspective at the very start of the civil rights movement in the southern US. Forty + years later one has to wonder what it would be like for a new JH Griffin to repeat the experience. What would he find different? What would he find the same? In all honesty, a great deal has changed and great deal has remained unchanged. It would be even more interesting to have a white become black and a black become white. I'm sure that would be quite an eye opening report from the both of them. The book just goes to show that a person can never really know what something is like unless they themselves have experienced it. Watching "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't make a person know what combat is really like although it can give an idea of it; a white person can never really know what it is like to be black although they may some idea, it is never authentic.
Rating:
Summary: To walk in another man's mocassins
Review: It is said one cannot understand or empathize with someone else unless "you walk a mile in their mocassins." John Howard Griffin did just that, darkened his skin and took a walk into the Deep South to see how it would feel to be a member of a despised minority during 1959, the height of the Jim Crow years, when water fountains and rest rooms were separate for the races, when a black man or woman couldn't eat in a restaurant or get a hotel room. (It is said Bessie Smith, the great blues singer, died after a car accident because she couldn't be treated at a nearby hospital, for whites only.) The book is of course dated, but it is unique in that it is a viewpoint that is undeniably credible. Here is a white guy, saying: "It happened to me, just because my skin was dark. Believe it." He suffers the indignity of finding everyday tasks that become almost insurmountable--to find a restroom, a bus seat, a park bench, someplace to eat, to be left alone with out fear of harrassment. And it's this harrassment and outright fear that changes Griffin to the point he had to finally abandon his project. He was changed by it. The question I have is what would someone who chose Griffin's experiment find today? While Jim Crow is gone, the cultures still have a gulf between them. And since today, you won't see the "whites only" sign on drinking fountains that I saw as a child traveling in the Deep South, you should be sure to read this to get perspective on our history and culture. This is a brave book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: This is a clear indicator of what it was like to be African American in the 50's and 60's in the U.S. It is still a good indicator of what it is like in some parts of the U.S. even today. Its a powerful book that people should take a look at.
Rating:
Summary: Giving Us Another Look
Review: I think that this is a great book for people to read, many people who were not aliv during these time periods do not understand the intensity of racism that occured. The stories that are told are so vicious and so cruel that sometimes we choose to not "hear" these stories. I think that this was a good book for people to read because I feel like this man did a great thing. It's hard to go from something to nothing but to want to understand what black people had to go through was something special. I know had it been me i would have given up as soon as I realized how bad it truly was for people, in this book white people wouldn't cash his checks, serve him, and white people tried to beat him up. He went through a lot and could have given up at any time but he chose not to. Then even after his experiment was over and he started doing all those different tv shows and interviews and he started being hated for what he did he still stuck with it and just moved away to another country. I look up to him for being strong enough to do this, but I also look up to him for taking the time to do it, even when he lightened up on his medicine so that he could go back and forth from black to white to compare how he was treated he knew that when he was black he was treated wrong, and also at the time when he went to Mississippi and the courts would put a lynch mob in jail just because they killed a black person and not a white person, it was things like this that showed him how bad black people really had it during these time periods....But overall this is a great book, people always say that you never really know a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes, I feel that John Griffin has walked states....
Rating:
Summary: Concept better than the actual book
Review: This book offers a unique perspective of racial tensions in the 1950s. John Griffin did the only thing that could be done, in order to capture views from both sides. However, the concept was more interesting to me than the actual story. Of course the main reason for this was that ,as Griffin mentions, he decided to stay out of the most hostile areas of the deep south so he wouldn't be risking his life. Anyone would have made the same decision, but I believe the choice to stay in better areas also cost him parts of the story. The last couple of chapters of aftermath are also disjointed and lead up to a weak conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: Black Like Me
Review: "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin is truly a magnificent book. All his life, he has seen the ridicule and hate towards African - Americans, but no he decides to journey into the life of a black man. With his skin tempoaririly darkened due to medical treatements, he says goodbye to his family and journeys into the life of an African American in the deep South. This book truly touched me. Me, being a young black woman, have exerienced minor events such as recorded in this book, but nothing ever this major. This is a book that all people need to read, wether you be white, black, chinese, asian.... ANYTHING!!! This book may only seem to focus on the love / hate relationship between whites and blacks, but really it reaches out to all types of racism.... girl / boy, chinese / japenese.... evendog / cat! This is definitely as must - read, page - turnin, "gimme just five more minutes, mom" type of book. I definietly give it two thumbs up!
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