Born in Dallas on this day in 1920, was a deeply spiritual writer and photographer who couldn't help looking around him and seeing AmeJohn Howard Griffin, born in Dallas on this day in 1920, was a deeply spiritual writer and photographer who couldn't help looking around him and seeing America's most vexing problem -- that of racism. Chauvinism and xenophobia had a long history in the U.S. People who didn't look like members of the majority were always in trouble, and suspect much of the time for not being "American" enough. That tendency was only exacerbaated by the introduction of black African slaves into the population, and by their eventual emancipation after the Civil War. The black African slaves were, technically, free. But because they looked so obviously different, they were not actually free -- free to vote, or become doctors or college professors, or marry others than other blacks, not even free to play baseball in the major leagues, until 1947. As a writer, Griffin wondered how whites would feel if they had to live in such a world. Not even he quite understood it. So, in order to understand better, he became black himself. He darkened his skin by taking certain chemicals, internally and externally, and by the use of ultra-violet light. And then he set out on a trip, to see what it was like "being black." It wasn't a walk in the park. Griffin was dissed in every way imaginable, insulted, beaten, brutalized -- simply because he was black. (He hadn't been treated this way before he became black, you see.) And then he wrote up his adventure in a book called "Black Like Me." It was a sensation. It was a best seller.

MODEL: These days, there are a good many articulate black writers who can help us all get a better understanding of what it is still like, for blacks living in what is in many ways still a racist America. Henry Louis Gates is one of them. Read Gates. Rica's most vexing problem -- that of racism. Chauvinism and xenophobia had a long history in the U.S. People who didn't look like members of the majority were always in trouble, and suspect much of the time for not being "American" enough. That tendency was only exacerbaated by the introduction of black African slaves into the population, and by their eventual emancipation after the Civil War. The black African slaves were, technically, free. But because they looked so obviously different, they were not actually free -- free to vote, or become doctors or college professors, or marry others than other blacks, not even free to play baseball in the major leagues, until 1947. As a writer, Griffin wondered how whites would feel if they had to live in such a world. Not even he quite understood it. So, in order to understand better, he became black himself. He darkened his skin by taking certain chemicals, internally and externally, and by the use of ultra-violet light. And then he set out on a trip, to see what it was like "being black." It wasn't a walk in the park. Griffin was dissed in every way imaginable, insulted, beaten, brutalized -- simply because he was black. (He hadn't been treated this way before he became black, you see.) And then he wrote up his adventure in a book called "Black Like Me." It was a sensation. It was a best seller. These days, there are a good many articulate black writers who can help us all get a better understanding of what it is still like, for blacks living in what is in many ways still a racist America. Henry Louis Gates is one of them. Read Gates.

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