Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin (1920 – 1980) was an American journalist and author, much of whose writing was about racial equality. He is best known for darkening his skin, and journeying through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia to experience segregation in the Deep South in 1959. It is a fascinating story of living in a predominantly white society, and the sad discrimination and prejudice he faced.

This enabled him to have a greater understanding of racial inequality and mistreatment simply because of skin color. He wrote about his experience and travels in his 1961 book Black Like Me.¹

Christ did more than change His appearance. He laid aside His glory, and took on our humanity, living on earth as a man, despised and rejected. Because of this, “…we do not have a High Priest who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and liabilities to the assaults of temptation” (Hebrews 4:15).

“The only God I know is the God made flesh” (Martin Luther, Marburg Colloquy, 1529).