John Howard Griffin

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John Howard Griffin (June 16, 1920 - September 9, 1980) was a white journalist and author who wrote largely in favor of racial equality. He is best known for darkening his skin and journeying through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Geogria to experience segregation in the Deep South in 1959. He wrote about the experience in his critically acclaimed Black Like Me.

Griffin was born in Dallas, Texas on June 16, 1920. He studied French and literature at the University of Poitiers and medicine at the École de Médecine. At age 19, he worked as a medic in the French Resistance army, and then served 39 months stationed in the South Sea in the United States Army Air Corps. He became disabled and was decorated for bravery.

Griffin wrote two major novels, The Devil Rides Outside and Nuni, during a decade of blindness between 1947 and 1957, the result of injuries sustained during service in World War II. He regained his vision.

His best known work has been Black Like Me, a first-person account of a 6-week journey through the Deep South disguised as a Negro.

Throughout his life, Griffin lectured and wrote on race relations and social justice. He died on September 9, 1980 due to diabetes and/or several other health problems, but not skin cancer as some believe. [1]

His works include: