Black Like Me Chapter 13 Summary

November 19, 1959

  • Griffin is on his way to Mobile, Alabama. He's hitchhiking his way from Biloxi, Mississippi and at first everything is going okay.
  • The first man who picks him up is from Massachusetts, and doesn't really get racism.
  • After that, he doesn't get a lot of rides, so he walks for miles. Or at least he does until nighttime. All of a sudden he gets lots of rides.
  • Why? Because they want to talk to him about sex. You know, because that's totally something you talk about with strangers.
  • Especially strangers who kill black men for even looking at posters of white women. If you want to know more about these guys you should check out this section—just be warned, these dudes are stomach-churningly sketchy.
  • Luckily enough, Griffin finds a guy who's not racist at all to hitchhike with. After a night like he's had, he's amazed!
  • The guy has a kid that he keeps talking about, so Griffin guesses that he loves this kid so much that he doesn't have any space left for hating black people.
  • After that he gets picked up by an old black guy and they have a sleepover gossiping about Jesus, the miracle of Lazarus, and race relations. No, they did not paint their toenails or have pillow-fights.