Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition by John Howard Griffin

Author:John Howard Griffin [Griffin, John Howard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic & Regional, African American & Black Studies, American, African American & Black, General, Biography & Autobiography, Cultural, Historical, Ethnic Studies, Race & Ethnic Relations
ISBN: 9780930324728
Publisher: Wings Press
Published: 2004-02-15T05:30:25.635802+00:00

“Mr. Griffin … Mr. Griffin.”

I heard the man’s soft voice above my shouts. I awakened to see the kerosene lamp and beyond it my host’s troubled face.

“Are you all right?” he asked. In the surrounding darkness I sensed the tension. They lay silent, not snoring.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was having a nightmare.”

He stood upright. From my position flat on the floor his head appeared to touch the ceiling beams far above. “Are you all right now?”

“Yes, thank you for waking me up.”

He stepped carefully over the children and returned to the other room.

It was the same nightmare. I had been having it recently. White men and women, their faces stern and heartless, closed in on me. The hate stare burned through me. I pressed back against a wall. I could expect no pity, no mercy. They approached slowly and I could not escape them. Twice before, I had awakened myself screaming.

I listened for the family to settle back into sleep. The mosquitoes swarmed. I lighted a cigarette, hoping its smoke would drive them out.

The nightmare worried me. I had begun this experiment in a spirit of scientific detachment. I wanted to keep my feelings out of it, to be objective in my observations. But it was becoming such a profound personal experience, it haunted even my dreams.

My host called me again at dawn. His wife stood in lamplight at the stove, pouring coffee. I washed my face in a bowl of water she had heated for me. We spoke by nods and smiles to avoid waking the children sprawled on the floor.

After breakfast of coffee and a slice of bread, we were ready to leave. I shook hands with her at the door and thanked her. Reaching for my wallet, I told her I wanted to pay her for putting me up.

She refused, saying that I had brought more than I had taken. “If you gave us a penny, we’d owe you change.”

I left money with her as a gift for the children, and the husband drove me back to the highway.

The morning was bright and cool. Before long a car with two young white boys picked me up. I quickly saw that they were, like many of their generation, kinder than the older ones. They drove me to a small town bus station where I could catch a bus.

I bought a ticket to Montgomery and went to sit outside on the curb where other Negro passengers gathered. Many Negroes walked through the streets. Their glances were kind and communicative, as though all of us shared some common secret.

As I sat in the sunlight, a great heaviness came over me. I went inside to the Negro rest room, splashed cold water on my face and brushed my teeth. Then I brought out my hand mirror and inspected myself. I had been a Negro more than three weeks and it no longer shocked me to see the stranger in the mirror. My hair had grown to a heavy fuzz, my

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