Black like me
1960
- african americans
- afro-american churches
- afro-americans
- biography
- history
- race relations
- religion
- social conditions
- reading level-grade 11
- reading level-grade 12
The story
Publisher's description: Studs Terkel tells us in his Foreword to the definitive Griffin Estate Edition of Black Like Me: "This is a contemporary book, you bet." Indeed, Black Like Me remains required reading in thousands of high schools and colleges for this very reason. Regardless of how much progress has been made in eliminating outright racism from American life, Black Like Me endures as a great human and humanitarian document. In our era, when "international" terrorism is most often defined in terms of a single ethnic designation and a single religion, we need to be reminded that America has been blinded by fear and racial intolerance before. As John Lennon wrote, "Living is easy with eyes closed." Black Like Me is the story of a man who opened his eyes, and helped an entire nation to do likewise.
What it’s like
Plain, unhurried first-person prose, written as a journal of days spent on dusty highways, in bus depots, barbershops and crowded church pews, with the heat of the Deep South rising off every page. The voice is spare and observant, reportorial rather than lyrical, so the sensory world arrives through small particulars: the smell of a segregated waiting room, the hush of a sweltering night, the sudden coolness of a Black congregation singing. The mood is a steady, sober unease that tips into dread whenever strangers look too long, with tension held in suspense more than spelled out. Violence appears in threats and a few harrowing encounters rather than gore, and racial slurs and humiliation recur, so it lands hard without being graphic. Pacing is diary-like: short entries, quiet stretches, then a sharp jolt. The emotional arc follows a man who loses his easy privilege and slowly, painfully learns what his ordinary life had let him ignore. Best for readers who want a grounded, sobering memoir for a long evening, or a history-minded reader prepared for unsparing content.
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