Black Like Me

A book. I read it in Junior High. It was written in 1959. The year I was born.

He took tanning pills in 1959 and wore makeup, then went to the south to see what would happen. It was so abrasive.

Three years later he did it again, and it was filmed for a documentary.

Black Like Me/Film synopsis:

This fact-based film chronicles the journey of a white reporter, John Finley Horton (James Whitmore), who attempts to live as a black man in the American South during the 1950s. After undergoing treatments to darken his skin, Horton ventures from town to town, experiencing hostile racism from whites whom he doesn’t provoke in any way. He also interacts with blacks and finds that they simply want justice, though some are pessimistic that change will ever come peacefully.

When I was 4 years old in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my mom pulled into a gas station. Full service, AKA, you did not pump your own. The attendant came to the window and said, “Fill her up mam?”

Sidenote, when I was 18 I worked at a full-service gas station. I pumped the gas and slip the card and got a signature.

So back to Oklahoma, age four.