John Griffin

John Howard Griffin was born in 1920. He was a novelist, photographer, journalist and served in the French Resistance during WW2, as well as in the US Army. In October 1959 he underwent medical treatment, disguised himself as a black man and travelled through the Deep South of America to experience the racism, casual violence and discrimination that was the daily experience of millions of Americans. Griffin's description of what he witnessed became a national (and international) outrage and when Black Like Me was first published in 1961 it awoke a vast section of the American public to what was happening in their country.

As a result of this book Griffin became deeply involved with the emerging Civil Rights movement, working closely with Martin Luther King among others. He received numerous death threats and several years later was almost beaten to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

He earned an international reputation as a human rights activist and was awarded the Pan African Association Award for Humanism. He died in 1980.