1950s 20th-century african-american african-american-lit african-american-stu african-americans america american american-history american-south americana autobiography bio biography black black-history civil-rights classic classics cultural-studies culture current fiction history journalism louisiana memoir memoirs new-orleans non-fiction nonfiction prejudice psychology race race-relations racism social-science society sociology south southern teens united-states us-history usa

In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color line.  Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.  His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity-that in this new millennium still has something important to say to every American.