In 1959 writer John Howard Griffin darkened his face, not to perform in a minstrel show or to imitate the dance moves of Michael Jackson, but to "cross the line into a country of hate, fear, and hopelessness" and gain some insight into the world of African Americans in the South.
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The result was the journey recorded in "Black Like Me." The biggest revelation was to view white people from the outside and to experience the hateful gaze that confronted him when he changed nothing but the color of his skin. And to realize what racism did to the soul of America
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"Future historians will be mystified that generations of us could stand in the midst of this sickness and never see it, never really feel how our System distorted and dwarfed human lives because they happened to inhabit bodies encased in a darker skin."
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Griffin was a decorated veteran, a friend of Thomas Merton, and worked on Merton's biography until his health prevented its completion. James Whitmore portrayed Griffin in the 1964 dramatization of his book Black Like Me.
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I appreciate this memorial about my father by @ggrenwald above any I have read today--for his comprehensive review of his bio & history, for his attention to themes generally overlooked about his post-Vietnam life, but particularly for deep appreciation of his human qualities.🙏
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Here's my @RollingStone article on Daniel Ellsberg, the heroic Pentagon Papers leaker who died today at 92:
"We’re Told Never to Meet Our Childhood Heroes. Knowing Daniel Ellsberg Proved That Wrong"
rollingstone.com/politics/polit
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