Thursday 8 November 2012

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY: IN 1961 JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN EMBARK ON AN EXPERIMENT " BLACK LIKE ME" WAS THE BOOK RESULT;

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the publication of the book  "BLACK LIKE ME " by John Howard Griffin a white man from Mansfield, Texas, who gained international fame for being Black for six weeks. The hatching of the Idea that became Griffin claim to fame is well known. In the autumn  of 1959, Griffin proposed to George Levitan, the owner of an African-American News Magazine published in Forth Worth that he darken his skin and attempt to live as a Black Man in the deep south. The experience would be well spring for a series of articles that ran in the magazine the following year and the basis for the 1961 best seller.

The Deep South had Jim Crow Segregation Laws, that has develop after the slave trade, a means of keeping Black People down, oppress them and in certain cases Lynch them after accusing them of raping white women. Griffins clandestine journey into the American nightmare begins in New Orleans a city he has visited as a white man with no problems, he was accepted as the superior race that roam the city as Gods on earth, but as a Black Man he was shock to see how down trodden Black People were in the jobs market, were they lived, what and were they can go and above all the evil of Deep South Jim Crow Segregation Laws, written and unwritten.

The Moral Hypocrisy And Sexual Hang-Ups of White People and the truth about Black Sexuality, one of the incident is a lift given to him by a young white driver, all he wanted to talk about is how Black People behave behind close doors in all their sexual activities.  .The fact that Black People dont hold back on their performance, all the different styles they can get up to, position that white people can only dream of, styles that whites have no idea about and then ask him to show his tool. Which he refused, as the poor young man has never seen a Black Person Naked in all his life. The only job he could get was as a shoe shine boy, and when he attended interviews  the jobs have always gone.




















The Question is it relevant today fifty years later, my answer to that my personal experience states that its as relevant today as it was years ago, only different is, its gone underground which makes it a million times more difficult to fight and get rid off.

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