Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin wrote Black like back in 1959 when racism was a huge problem. The story starts out in Mansfield, Texas when John (who was already very comitted to racial justice) decides to undergo a medical treatment and become a black man. Of course his wife was supportive and he made the transformation. This book is about his journey around the USA and how much he learned about the black communities and what really goes on.
When he first starts out in New Orleans he expects to find predjuide and oppression, and what he find actually shockes him more. He couldnt get a job, he was called "Nigger", clerks refused to cash his checks and there were many mean bullys. After spending several horrible days in New Orleans he decides to go to Mississippi and Alabama where apparently things are even worse for black people.
In Mississippi a grand jury refused to indict a lynch mob that murdered a black man before he could stand trial. John felt so exsausted and sad at this point. So he calls a newspaper man he knows and spends a day with him, and they discuss the way racial prejudice has been incorporated into the South's legal code by "bigoted writers and politicians."
At this point he's appalled, and notices black communities seem run-down and defeated. He even notices a look of defeat and hopelessness in himself, and this is only after only a few weeks as a black man. Imagine if you were one all your life.
In Montgomery, however, the black community is determinat and has more energy than most. This is because of one of its leaders, a preacher named Marin Luther King, Jr. Blacks in nonviolent form of refusing to comply with racist laws and rules. After he sees this John decides to alternate races. He attends somewhere as a black man and then as a white man.
Finally in Atlanta, John conducts a long series of interviews with black leaders before returning to New Orleans to make a photographic record of his time spent.
He then goes off his medication and retuns back to totally white. He writes his article and it is published in March of 1960. The rest of the world quickly attaches to his story and he does many interviews but in Texas other citizens are very hateful towards him for telling that story. The treats get so bad that eventually he moves his family to Mexico.
Before he goes he tells a little black boy that racism is "social conditioning, not any inherent quality within blacks or whites."
And I think that sums up the problem very well.