John Howard Griffin
| John Howard Griffin | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
June 16, 1920 Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | September 9, 1980 (aged 60) Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. |
| Education | University of Poitiers |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Notable credit(s) | Black Like Me |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Ann Holland (1953 to his death) |
| Children | 4 |
John Howard Griffin (June 16, 1920 – September 9, 1980) was an American journalist and author from Texas, who wrote about racial equality. He is best known for his project to temporarily pass as a black man and journey through the Deep South of 1959 to see life and segregation from the other side of the color line. He first published a series of articles on his experience in Sepia Magazine, which had underwritten the project. He published a fuller account in a book Black Like Me (1961). This was later adapted as a 1964 film of the same name. A 50th anniversary edition of the book, with versions for devices, was published in 2011 by Wings Press.
Griffin was born in 1920 in Dallas, Texas to John Walter Griffin and Lena May Young. His mother was a classical pianist, and Griffin acquired his love of music from her. Awarded a musical scholarship, he went to France to study French language and literature at the University of Poitiers and medicine at the École de Médecine. At 19, he joined the French Resistance as a medic, working at the Atlantic seaport of Saint-Nazaire, where he helped smuggle Austrian Jews to safety and freedom in England.
Griffin returned to the United States and enlisted, serving 39 months in the United States Army Air Corps stationed in the South Pacific, during which he was decorated for bravery. He spent 1943–44 as the only European-American on Nuni, one of the Solomon Islands, where he was assigned to study the local culture. He suffered a bout with spinal malaria that left him temporarily paraplegic. During this year, Griffin married an island woman.
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