I HAVE RECENTLY BOUGHT THE TWO DISC DVD CALLED "BLACK LIKE ME" WHICH INCLUDES THE 1964 MOVIE BY THE SAME NAME, AND THE ONE HOUR LONG "DOCUMENTARY" ON JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN. HIS LIFE WAS DIVERSE AND QUITE REMARKABLE IN MANY WAYS. THIS TWO DISC DVD SHOULD BE COMPULSORY VIEWING FOR ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. YOU AND YOUR FAMILY SHOULD HAVE IT AS PART OF YOUR HOME LIBRARY AND EDUCATION, IN AMERICAN HISTORY, AND SPECIFICALLY AMERICAN BLACK HISTORY.
ON THE BACK OF THE DVD WE READ:
"THE MOST HONEST, COURAGEOUS, AND HARD-HITTING OF AMERICAN FEATURES DEALING WITH CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH" - GERALD PEARY, THE BOSTON PHOENIX
IN 1964, JUST AS WASHINGTON WAS PASSING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, SOME OF HOLLYWOOD'S MOST PASSIONATE ACTIVISTS INTERPRETED JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN'S BRAVE CHRONICLE "BLACK LIKE ME" FOR THE SCREEN, WITH JAMES WHITMORE STARRING AS THE WRITER, WHO, IN 1959, MEDICALLY ALTERED HIS PIGMENT AND, WITH THE HELP OF A SUN LAMP, REINVENTED HIMSELF AS AN ITINERANT BLACK WRITER NAVIGATING HIS WAY THROUGH THE JIM CROW SOUTH. WHITMORE'S GRIFFIN EXPERIENCES FIRSTHAND BOTH CRUSHING RACISM AND THE INCREDIBLE LIFE FORCE OF THE AFRO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY..... THE FILM WAS FULLY RESTORED FROM THE NEGATIVE FOR THIS RELEASE AND INCLUDES A BONUS DISC CONTAINING "UNCOMMON VISION," THE BIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTARY OF GRIFFIN'S REMARKABLE LIFE AND TIMES."
John Howard Griffin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| John Howard Griffin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 16, 1920 Dallas, Texas |
| Died | September 9, 1980 (aged 60) |
| Education | University of Poitiers |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Notable credit(s) | Black Like Me |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Ann Holland (1953 to his death) |
John Howard Griffin (June 16, 1920 – September 9, 1980) was an American journalist and author, much of whose writing was about racial equality. He is best known for darkening his skin and journeying through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to experience segregation in the Deep South in 1959. He wrote about this experience in his 1961 book Black Like Me.
Contents
[hide]Early life[edit]
Griffin was born in Dallas, Texas to John Walter Griffin and Lena May Young Griffin.[1] His mother was a classical pianist, and Griffin acquired his love of music from her. Awarded a musical scholarship, he studied French and literature at the University of Poitiers and medicine at the École de Médecine. At 19, he worked as a medic in theFrench Resistance at the Atlantic seaport of Saint-Nazaire, where he helped smuggle Austrian Jews to safety and freedom.[2]
Griffin then served 39 months in the United States Army Air Corps, stationed in the South Pacific. He spent 1943–44 as the only Caucasian on Nuni, one of the Solomon Islands, where he was assigned to study the local culture; he even married an islander.[3] His 1956 novel Nuni is a semi-autobiographical work that draws heavily on his year "marooned" on the island, and shows an interest in ethnography he followed more fully in Black Like Me. He was decorated for bravery.[2]
Left blind by a 1946 accident in the United States Army Air Corps, he began to write. He came home to Texas, converted to Catholicism in 1952, becoming a lay Carmelite, and taught piano. In 1953, he married (with dispensation from the Vatican on account of his first marriage) one of his students, Elizabeth Ann Holland, with whom he had four children. He was a lifelong Democrat. In 1957 he regained his eyesight and became an accomplished photographic artist. Griffin's experiences in blindness were posthumously published as Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision.
Black Like Me and later[edit]
In the fall of 1959, Griffin determined to investigate the plight of African-Americans in the South first hand. He consulted a New Orleans dermatologist, who prescribed a course of drugs, sunlamp treatments, and skin creams. Griffin also shaved his head so as not to reveal his straight hair. He spent weeks travelling as a black man in New Orleans and parts of Mississippi (with side trips to South Carolina and Georgia), getting around mainly by bus and by hitch-hiking.
His resulting memoir, Black Like Me, became a best seller in 1961. The book described in detail the problems an African American encountered in the Deep South meeting such simple needs as finding food, shelter, and toilet facilities. Griffin also described the hatred he often felt from white Southerners he encountered in his daily life — shop clerks, ticket sellers, bus drivers, and others. He was particularly shocked by the curiosity white men displayed about his sexual life. His account was tempered with some anecdotes about white Southerners who were friendly and helpful.[2]
Black Like Me made Griffin a national celebrity for a time. In a 1975 essay included in later editions of the book, Griffin described the hostility and threats to himself and his family which emerged in his hometown ofMansfield, Texas, where he was hanged in effigy. He eventually moved his family to Mexico for about nine months before returning to Fort Worth.[2][4]
Following publication of the book, which was subsequently made into a film starring James Whitmore, Griffin lectured and wrote on race relations and social justice. In 1964, he received the Pacem in Terris Award from the Davenport (Iowa) Catholic Interracial Council for his contributions to racial understanding.
In his later years, Griffin focused on researching his friend Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk and spiritual writer he first met in 1962. Griffin was chosen by Merton's estate to write the authorized biography of Merton, but his health prevented him from completing this project. Griffin's nearly finished portion of the biography – on Merton's later years – was posthumously published in 1983 as Follow the Ecstasy: Thomas Merton, the Hermitage Years, 1965–1968.
Death and rumored effects of Oxsoralen[edit]
It has been erroneously claimed that the large doses of Oxsoralen Griffin used in 1959 eventually led to his death from skin cancer. Griffin did not have skin cancer; the only negative symptoms he suffered due to the drug were temporary and minor. The worst, arguably, were fatigue and nausea.[5]
Biographical works[edit]
Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me, by Robert Bonazzi, who published some of Griffin's writings at his Latitudes Press, was published in 1997. Bonazzi is said to be at work on a full-scale biography of Griffin with the working title Reluctant Activist: The Authorized Biography of John Howard Griffin.[6]
An hour-long biographical documentary about Griffin, Uncommon Vision: The Life and Times of John Howard Griffin, was released in 2011.[7] The film has been aired on PBS stations and is included as an extra on the 2013 DVD release of the film Black Like Me.[8]
Works[edit]
- The Devil Rides Outside (1952)
- Nuni (1956)
- Land of the High Sky (1959)
- Black Like Me (1961)
- The Church and the Black Man (1969)
- A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Merton (1970)
- Twelve Photographic Portraits (1973)
- Jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures (1974)
- A Time to be Human (1977)
- The Hermitage Journals: A Diary Kept While Working on the Biography of Thomas Merton (1981)
- Follow the Ecstasy: Thomas Merton, the Hermitage Years, 1965–1968 (1983), slightly revised as Follow the Ecstasy: The Hermitage Years of Thomas Merton (1993).
- Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision (2004)
- Available Light: Exile in Mexico (2008)
References[edit]
- ^ Article about Griffin by the Texas State Historical Association and the University of Texas at Austin
- ^ a b c d Kevin Connolly (25 October 2009), Exposing the colour of prejudice, BBC News
- ^ [1] Handbook of Texas Online'
- ^ Jonathan Yardley (March 17, 2007), John Howard Griffin Took Race All the Way to the Finish, Washington Post
- ^ a b Dispute of the belief that Griffin died from his skin darkening treatments true (from Snopes.com)
- ^ "DVD Release: Black Like Me" retrieved 2-13-2013.
- ^ Uncommon Vision profile at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ "DVD Release: Black Like Me" retrieved 2-13-2013.
Further reading[edit]
- Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-century U.S. Literature and Culture by Gayle Wald. Duke University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8223-2515-2.
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