50th Anniversary Edition
John Howard Griffin
Wing Press
2011/ ISBN 0916727688
Nonfiction / Memior
Amazon
Reviewed
by Willie Elliott
Wings Press
has issued a 50th anniversary edition of John Howard Griffin's classic
account of a man who transformed himself in what appeared to be
a black man to get a first-hand view of how he would be treated
as a black man in the South in Black Like Me.
For people who have read the book earlier, it is
important to reread to see what progress we have made and what still
needs to be done. But more than that it should be read to remind
people of what we did to our fellow man and how we tried to justify
it as the way things should be done.
One of the things that strike the reader is the
fact that the people who treated blacks so unfairly were not the
dregs of society but the very upper crust—the very people
who should have been looking after the blacks’ interests were
the worst offenders.
Much additional updated information is included
in the book including a foreword by Studs Terkel, additional texts
by the author, historical photos by Don Ruteledge, and an afterword
by Griffin biographer, Robert Bonazzi,but the book itself should
be read carefully and and pondered upon.
Hopefully,
people who read or reread this book will become more tolerant of
other groups who are now victims of prejudice and hate.
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