John Howard Griffin
Born in 1920
John Howard Griffin was a white American journalist who gained fame for his 1961 book Black Like Me.
In 1959, Griffin artificially darkened his skin and traveled through the segregated South for six weeks, experiencing life as a black man.
This experiment provided him with firsthand insight into the harsh realities of racial discrimination.
Griffin's background included fighting in the French Resistance during World War II, temporary blindness due to a war injury, and conversion to Catholicism.
After publishing Black Like Me, Griffin became a prominent civil rights activist, facing threats and violence for his work.
