Character Sketch : John Howard Griffin

John Howard Griffin is an independent journalist who, in 1959, was very outspoken against the racial segregation of the southern United States, he decided to go undercover as and African-American to better understand and document the southern black man's experience in this controversial time.



Griffin was initially uncertain of the difficulties he would need to cope with as a black man. Most notably of his struggles was his sudden and overwhelmingly shocking identity shift, which went beyond his physical appearance. As a black man Griffin had to adapt his outward personality and actions in order to survive in the hostile south of the late fifty's. Griffin was even unable to think of his wife and children in the same light he had as a white man; Stuck in the role of the Southern Negro, he found it difficult to think of his family, as a black man he didn't feel part of such a life, he perceived that even thinking of being with a white woman was dangerous in this setting. The identity shift he went through would eat away at his psyche.



Griffin is a man of large stature, dark hair and light skin. When he made his transformation of blackening his skin, under the advice of Sterling Williams, John shaved the hair on his head, arms, hands and changed his fine clothes for more modest attire, so as not to attract any unwanted attention or thieves looking to prey on a well off black man. He regularly must apply prescribed pigmentation to his flesh in order to maintain the darkness of his skin.



Throughout his experience in the South, John is witness to the daily injustice and hate inflicted on the African-Americans by the southern whites, and is subject to it himself. The torturous “hate stare” would tear at him when encountering those openly hateful people of the south. Access to anything was strictly limited to the generosity of the nearest white to take authority, like when the weary John took a break from hitching and stopped at a vendor on the road to eat and ask the use the washroom, purchasing food was no problem but vendor flat out denied the privilege to urinate in privacy in the dirty outhouse behind his establishment.



The journey Griffin goes through helps him and the reader better understand of the weaknesses of humanity, that all people are flawed, by expressing the negative aspects of ourselves all of our flaws come to the surface which reflect badly on all of humanity but especially the groups you are associated with.