Black Like Me

Part I of Essay
was first published in November of 1961. It was originally written as an article describing the rise in suicide tendency among Southern Negroes. John Howard Griffin assumed that "it would be an obscure work, of interest primarily to sociologists." Historically, Griffin was ....

Part II of Essay
.... to see myself disguised, but this was something else. I was imprisoned in the flesh of an utter stranger, an unsympathetic one with whom I felt no kinship. All traces of the John Griffin I had been were wiped from existence. Even the senses underwent a change so profound it filled me with distress. I looked into the mirror and saw nothing of the white John Griffin's past." (pgs.15-16) The theme of isolation is first discovered in this quote. Griffin feels imprisoned in a body other than his own. He does not like the person he sees before him ....