Black Like Me

Unfortunately, the quality of this movie was hindered by the poor production values of the period, as well as a low budget. This is the true story of John Howard Griffin (in the movie referred to as John Finley Horton, a Caucasian man who cared enough about the issues of racism that he put himself and his family in danger by posing as an African American man who traveled through the then racist Deep South of the United States in the late 1950's. The movie does not entirely succeed in capturing the terror, the weariness, the lack of dignity, and the outright hatred experienced by the lead character simply because of the color of his skin. However, seeing this movie should stimulate one's curiosity enough to read the book, one of the best and most disturbing I have ever read and whose message is still relevant today And for those of you poor souls who believe that this movie is little more than an example of "reverse racism," I suggest you consult a dictionary because there is no such term.

John Howard Griffin was a white reporter who darken his skin to experience life as a black man in the deep South. This is based on his book. John Finley Horton (James Whitmore) from Texas wants to write a series of articles on integration for Eli Carr (Clifton James) but he's afraid of the repercussions. He gets treatments of pills and tanning lamps to darken his skin. Along the way, he reveals the truth to shoeshine Burt Wilson (Richard Ward) and gets his help to pass.

"I changed the color of my skin... now I know what it feels like to be BLACK!" They couldn't get away with that tagline today. No matter how well the disguise, the color doesn't come off of a black man at the end of the day. Its heart is in the right place, but James Whitmore looks like a darkened white man. The eyes are one problem and he needs a good pair of sunglasses. The other problem is that it isn't always a compelling movie. There are scenes of eye opening racism. There are also weird little scenes about race relations. It's put together like a series of disconnected vignettes. As a movie, it doesn't really flow and the acting sometimes fall into melodrama territories. It's still interesting to watch.

This is the sleepy South as it really was. The pace is deliberate but necessarily so. The direction and acting is gritty and real.

The anger was real. The prejudice was real. The hate was real. The fear was real. The pain was real. It really happened this way.

This movie shows us all that. We walk in the shoes of a white man who looks like a black man...but we will never know. We can only imagine like James Whitmore's character, John Horton. We can only imagine what a man or woman had to endure in the unilluminated history of the United States.

Seeing this, we know, though we have come quite some distance, that we have still a long way to go before the reality is but a memory.

I salute all of those involved in this film and Mr. John Howard Griffin who endured it all and let us know the cruelty of man and helped us open our eyes.

This is a good movie but the book is better. In the book the emotions unfold over a longer period of time which is more realistic. The premise of both (without spoilers): white journalist darkens skin in order to appear black and details his experiences as a black man in the south in a book. Therein lies the problem. Griffin's life as a white man is not erased by the darkening of his skin. For example, in both the book and the movie, Griffin looks for normalcy in activities that blacks during that time period were aware would result in hostility. Going into white neighborhoods attempting to get change in stores. Offensive conversations in cars with whites while hitch hiking, etc. To be clear, blacks were definitely angered by any indignities caused by these experiences. However many of the blacks during that time period never had the privileges that Griffin had had all of his life. My point is that Griffin's anger reaches a crescendo at a quick pace because of a life of white privilege suddenly hindered by dark skin. Blacks cared about daily indignities but always with a concern over the larger political and social institutions and structures that created them. The book and the movie are accurate in many ways, but they represent merely a snapshot of a much larger scheme.

Obviously hampered by a small "independent" budget and the casting of James Whitmore (a fine stage actor who, unlike the original author of the book, John Howard Griffin, simply cannot believably pass for a black man) in the lead, director Carl Lerner's screenplay (co-written with Gerda Lerner and an uncredited Paul Green) shuns Griffin's chronological story telling through dated diary entries and rearranges the events Griffin told so well to surprisingly LESS dramatic effect, but it gives a movingly honest portrayal of life in the South near the start of the long over-due civil rights movement.

The year this film was released my (white) family was transferred to a suburb of Atlanta, Ga. from a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C., and enroute we were stunned to see Klansmen in full regalia out on the interstate in North Carolina inspecting cars coming down from the north. It was just one of those things one had to live with at the time - like civil rights workers being murdered and their killers, when caught, being acquitted by all white juries - but this film manages, despite honestly showing the unremitting low grade caution every black person had to live with, and the blatant racism of a few Southern whites, to also be fair to the majority which was merely oblivious to - and sometimes even quietly disapproving of the evil around them - who wouldn't intentionally hurt a black person.

This well meaning majority,unintentionally perpetuating what they saw as "something they couldn't do anything about," eventually came around - and the book helped, even if the movie went largely unseen.

One of the most effecting - but at the same time least persuasive - sections of the film comes late, when Whitmore/Griffin's character tries to justify his actions to a rising young black activist (excellently played to type by Al Freeman Jr.). As it turned out, Griffin's book actually did help in the long struggle for equality, bringing the reality of a shame to the attention of the rest of the nation which needed the reminder as it demanded and helped the South come into the 20th Century, but the film only touches on the screams of outrage from the South at the mirror being held up so honestly to something they did not wish to see.

This was only a few years after the "Stars and Bars" (the old Confederate Battle Flag alluded to so effectively in the opening credits of this film) was pointedly added to the Georgia state flag in protest to Federal Civil Rights legislation. Bigots (self identifying and otherwise) called it an emblem of "local pride and heritage" - realists saw it for what it was in the modern usage and timing: a symbol of hate, rebellion and intimidation.

Times really have changed radically in the 40+ years since this film was made, and today the movie is chiefly valuable as a document of what life was like in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia during Griffin's all too brief (one month) sojourn on the other side of the color barrier. The street scenes and home details are perfectly observed. As one who lived through the period, I can testify the film is not over stated politically or socially.

The movie BLACK LIKE ME does not portray "every white person as a bigot" (though in my years growing up in the South, I never met a bigot who self-identified as one), but it does show how a rotten few can intimidate a complacent majority on any issue. As we let some politicians play "the terror card" to suspend out liberties in the 21st Century, or the pseudo-"religious" and "guilt by association cards" to deny the right to marriage to significant parts of the population at a time when stable relationships are in society's best interest, it is perhaps a lesson worth remembering. The sad thing is that for the most part, the only people who will bother to watch this flawed but decent film are for the most part the ones who already know.