Analysis Of Black Like Me

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The book, Black Like Me was written by John Howard Griffin in the 1960’s, around the same time of the start of the Civil Rights Movement. “The civil rights movement was a struggle by African Americans in the mid-1950s to late 1960s to achieve civil rights equal to those of whites, including equal opportunity in employment, housing, and education, as well as the right to vote, the right of equal access to public facilities, and the right to be free of racial discrimination.”(encyclopedia.com) Griffin was doing somme research and came upon a few statistic charts that showed the suicide rates of many african americans, especially in these southern states where racism was very high. He was a journalist and wanted to experience what it would be …show more content…

When he traveled to Mississippi , he instantly felt a shift in the way people acted towards him. Women would give him dirty looks and men would threaten him and physically hurt him if he stepped out of line in any way. While Griffin was sitting on the bus one day, a women refused to sit in the empty seat next to him because she wanted no contact with him. It was also very easy for the white man to get a job over the black man. Those are just a few differences between the classes, a few others are, education in the children, the schools that they could go to, even the facilities. He learned that he had to walk very far to go to the bathroom, even though there were bathrooms very close to him, only meat to be used by white individuals. The division of the social classes were clear, white people had more power, and would rarely be found guilty, even if everyone knew the truth. Griffin heard about the poor man named Mark Parker from Mississippi who was lynched by a white mob. The kmob wasn 't found guilty because “there wasn 't enough evidence”. So this innocent black man was murdered by this group of men, and no one was charged or punished for it. This is a very good example of social positions and how these people are viewed by

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