#56 in Biography & memoir
Black Like Me
- 190
- Pages
- about 3.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Black Like Me” is a powerful first-hand account of racism in the Jim Crow South by a white journalist who darkened his skin to live it. John Howard Griffin travelled for six weeks through five segregated states, and his record shows people judging him by colour alone, whatever his name, manner or speech. Some readers urge reading it in the light of its era and stress the real risk Griffin ran.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Black Like Me, first published in 1961, is a nonfiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin recounting his journey in the Deep South of the United States, at a time when African Americans lived under the Jim Crow laws. Griffin was a native of Mansfield, Texas, who had his skin temporarily darkened to pass as a black man. He traveled for six weeks throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia to explore life from the other side of the color line. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 60 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 29% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Biography & memoir average of 8.1. That is how 8.2 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.3 | 11 | 18% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 49 | 82% |
Frequently asked
How long is Black Like Me?
It has 190 pages — shorter than 92% of the ranked books in Biography & memoir.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Biography & memoir — with scores between 8.0 and 8.3, closest to this book.
