In a case where a black man was lynched and murdered, not only did jurors fail to indict the men accused, they also declined to review any of the evidence compiled against them.Īfter several days of hitchhiking and fielding shockingly intimate sexual questions from the curious white men who stopped to give him a lift, Griffin took shelter with a poor black family. He was most anxious in Mississippi, where a recent trial had set both blacks and whites on edge.
How does such a man act? Where does he go to find food, water, a bed?"įor weeks, Griffin lived in the black sections of different cities, staying at black-only hotels, eating at cafes owned and run by blacks, traveling alongside black men and women. The strangeness of my situation struck me anew - I was a man born old at midnight into a new life. A thousand questions presented themselves. 7, 1959, for an unmapped adventure that would take him through Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia. After several days, the 39-year-old set out on Nov. Under a dermatologist's care, Griffin took the drug Oxsoralen to darken his skin, sat under a sunlamp, and ground stain into his flesh to even out the color. "It hit home for them when not only could he not find a job, but he wasn't allowed to use the same restroom as whites." Griffin spoke with Sepia magazine about his plans to travel as a black man, and the magazine agreed to run a series of articles about his journey. "My students were just awed by the fact that he (Griffin) was not allowed to use a bathroom," says Geneva Hargrove, a former high school English teacher who now directs federal and state programs in Texas. Still taught in high schools across the country, the book jump-starts conversation and personal reflection about race. "I judge it for its moral and historical significance, and the inspiration it gave to those of us still looking for hope in those days." Schools use book "You can judge the book on its literary merit, but that's not how I judge it," says Bob Ray Sanders, 64, whose columns for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram often confront racial themes.
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