Black Like Me, first published in 1961, is a nonfiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin recounting his journey in the Deep South of the United States, at a time when African-Americans lived under racial segregation.

He traveled for six weeks throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia to explore life from the other side of the color line.

Once there, under the care of a dermatologist, Griffin underwent a regimen of large oral doses of the anti-vitiligo drug methoxsalen, and spent up to 15 hours daily under an ultraviolet lamp for about a week.

Sterling Williams, a black shoeshine man in the French Quarter whom Griffin regarded as a casual friend, did not recognize him.

On a bus trip, Griffin began to give his seat to a white woman, but disapproving looks from black passengers stopped him.

When his skin had regained its natural color, he quietly slipped into the white part of Montgomery, and was jarred by how warmly the people there now treated him.

In a 1975 essay included in later editions of the book, he recounted encountering hostility and threats to him and his family in his hometown of Mansfield, Texas.

[8][9] In 1964, while stopped with a flat tire in Mississippi, Griffin was assaulted by a group of white men and beaten with chains.

Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles, which it did under the title Journey into Shame.