This Peaceful Science post is more about PEACE than SCIENCE. It was prompted by my recently sorting through boxes of books from long ago. I came upon an important book which is probably unknown to most Americans of younger generations. In a time when websites about the accomplishments of people of color are ordered to be taken down, I want to draw attention to John Howard Griffin’s 1961 groundbreaking Black Like Me.
I was age 12 when I read this book. I grew up on a Midwestern farm where the only people of color in the community were the Hispanic migrant workers who lived there only during the summer. Until I read this book, I knew little of the daily lives of African Americans—Negro was still the common label then—except what I saw in TV news reports and in documentaries like Harvest of Shame. (Harvest of Shame - Wikipedia)
John Griffin was a white man who used various means to darken his skin so that he could pass as a black man as he travelled through six racially segregated states of the Deep South. The Wikipedia link provides a good summary of his crushing experiences. Then there is this:
When his skin had regained its natural color, he quietly slipped into the white part of Montgomery [Alabama], and was jarred by how warmly the people there now treated him.
— From note #6 of Black Like Me - Wikipedia
Griffin became a national celebrity because of the book and he and his family had so many death threats that they moved to Mexico for safety. But safety was hard to come by:
In 1964, while stopped with a flat tire in Mississippi, Griffin was assaulted by a group of white men and beaten with chains. The assailants’ motivation was attributed to the book. It took Griffin five months to recover from his injuries.
There has certainly been much progress in the cause of human rights in America. But I fear we are observing a governmental shift that is yet another alarming reminder of what happened in Germany in 1933 and the years which followed. I don’t think I’m guilty of hyperbole. The dangers are very real. And friends who I once trusted are drinking the [your generic powder-based soft-drink substitution goes here] and defending the most dangerous trends in our society. I’m finding myself under social pressure to remain silent. I’m even considered a “liberal”—which is very odd considering my history and voting patterns—for simply not being enthusiastic about recent developments. Their anger is not always just beneath the surface. It erupts.
I don’t expect everyone to go read Black Like Me but I think you will benefit from reading the Wikipedia summary. The book had a huge impact on me, an impact which lasts to this day.