John Howard Griffin was a journalist and a specialist on race
issues. After publication, he became a leading advocate in the Civil
Rights Movement and did much to promote awareness of the racial situations
and pass legislature. He was middle aged and living in Mansfield, Texas
at the time of publication in 1960. His desire to know if Southern whites
were racist against the Negro population of the Deep South, or if they
really judged people based on the individual's personality as they said
they prompted him to cross the color line and write Black Like Me. …
