Black Like Me (1964)

Director:

Carl Lerner

Writers:

John Howard Griffin (book)
Carl Lerner (writer)

Release Date:

20 May 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Black Like Me is the true account of John Griffin's experiences when he passed as a black man. John...

Plot Keywords:

South | Passing For Black | African American | Impersonation | Prejudice

Cast

James Whitmore	...	John Finley Horton
Sorrell Booke	...	Dr. Jackson
Roscoe Lee Browne	...	Christopher
Al Freeman Jr.	...	Thomas Newcomb
Will Geer	...	Truckdriver
Robert Gerringer	...	Ed Saunders
Clifton James	...	Eli Carr
John Marriott	...	Hodges
Thelma Oliver	...	Georgie
Lenka Peterson	...	Lucy Horton (as Lenka Petersen)
P. Jay Sidney	...	Frank Newcomb (as P.J. Sidney)
Billie Allen	...	Vertell
Alan Bergmann	...	Charles Maynard
Stanley Brock	...	Salesman
Heywood Hale Broun

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Latin

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

The Hilltop Company

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch: Geek Like Me (#1.9)" (1996)

Important Movie

This is the sleepy South as it really was. The pace is deliberate but necessarily so. The direction and acting is gritty and real.

The anger was real. The prejudice was real. The hate was real. The fear was real. The pain was real. It really happened this way.

This movie shows us all that. We walk in the shoes of a white man who looks like a black man...but we will never know. We can only imagine like James Whitmore's character, John Horton. We can only imagine what a man or woman had to endure in the unilluminated history of the United States.

Seeing this, we know, though we have come quite some distance, that we have still a long way to go before the reality is but a memory.

I salute all of those involved in this film and Mr. John Howard Griffin who endured it all and let us know the cruelty of man and helped us open our eyes.