John Howard Griffin

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John Howard Griffin (born June 16, 1920 in Dallas , † September 9, 1980 in Fort Worth ) was an American author . He became famous through his book Black Like Me (1961): Griffin had darkened his skin artificially as a white man in order to experience racial discrimination as a black person.

Life

John Howard Griffin was born in Dallas, the second of four children to John Walter and Lena May (Young) Griffin. He attended RL Paschal High School in Fort Worth. At 15 he left the United States to continue his education at the Lycée Descartes in Tours in France . He then studied French and literature at the University of Poitiers , medicine at the École de Médicine and music at the Conservatoire de Fontainebleau .

During World War II , he served 39 months in the United States Army Air Corps in the South Pacific , was injured and honored for valor. While stationed in the Pacific, he married a local from Nuni Island. Either as a long-term consequence of the injury or because of chronic diabetes , he lost his left eye from 1946 to 1957. From 1957 to 1960 he worked as a journalist.

In 1952 he converted to Catholicism and became a member of the Order of the Carmelites , more precisely the 3rd Order of Mount Carmel, which is also open to married people. For his second marriage to Elizabeth Ann Holland on June 2, 1953 in Mansfield , he received his own dispensation from the Vatican . The couple had four children.

Black like me

Black like me was the title of the work that made Griffin suddenly famous in the USA and which is still well known today. In the fall of 1959, Griffin moved into a room at the Monteleone Hotel (214 Royal Street) in New Orleans . He took drugs that changed his skin color, exposed himself to artificial sunlamps for several hours a day, shaved his skull and gradually turned black. Then he cruised the south for six weeks, drove through Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama, and Georgia - and wrote down what happened to him. His accounts of the degrading treatment of whites as "tenth class citizens" were first published in the photo journal Sepia , a publication owned by black Americans and published for blacks.

The reaction in his hometown of Mansfield was violent - his family received death threats and he was publicly reviled as a “traitor to the white race”. Griffin, fearing for the safety of his family, moved to Mexico , where he condensed the stories into a book called Black like me .

White critics praised the book when it appeared in 1961, and it subsequently climbed onto the bestseller list. The black critics were much more cautious. In any case, the book made Griffin a sought-after writer and reader.

The book has a circulation of 10 million, it was translated into 14 languages ​​and filmed in 1964 with James Whitmore in the leading role. In America, it has been part of the curriculum at many high schools and universities since its release .

Works

His works include:

  • The Devil Rides Outside. 1952
  • Nuni. 1956
    • Nuni or The Last Joy. Novel. Schünemann, Bremen 1958
  • Land of the High Sky. 1959
  • Black Like Me. 1961
    • Journey through the dark. Desch, Munich / Vienna / Basel 1962
  • The Church and the Black Man. 1969
  • A time to be human. 1977

literature

  • Robert Bonazzi: Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me. Orbis Books, Maryknoll 1997, ISBN 1570751188

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Griffin, John Howard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Dallas
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1980
Place of death Fort Worth