John Howard Griffin Timeline and Summary

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• Griffin decides to go undercover as a black man. He has no idea what kind of craziness is in store for him.
• He leaves his family and heads to New Orleans, where he becomes a shoe-shiner.
• So far so good, but things start going bad when Griffin looks for a job. No one wants him. They don't even want them to sit near them. And he can't find a bathroom.
• Griffin decides to head to Mississippi. Everyone says that this is a horrible idea but he ignores them.
• Everyone was right; Mississippi is horrible. Griffin get so depressed that he has to call a friend to bail him out. He stays with the friends for a while, and they drop them off in New Orleans.
• Okay, you would think that he would've learned his lesson, but Griffin decides to head to Mobile, Alabama.
• While hitchhiking, man after man pick him up and explain to him their weird perverted fantasies about black people and sex. Griffin really doesn't want to hear this.
• When he finally gets to Mobile, he still can't find a job. But he does get threatened with lynching.
• More hitchhiking, but this time Griffin is lucky and a black man takes him home to spend the night. This is the most touching scene and the saddest at the same time.
• Now Griffin is in Montgomery, but he's kind of tired of being black so he decides to stop. At first he's nervous, but it turns out fine.
• He spends the next couple of days switching between being black and white.
• While waiting to wrap up the story, Griffin spends some time in a monastery. It is awesome.
• He does some interviews and takes pictures in New Orleans for the article. Then he heads home to Texas.
• Griffin becomes a mini celebrity because of his work, and all the hosts want him on their TV shows. But the people in his town are angry.
• He's burned in effigy, and that's the beginning of a whole new mess of problems.
• The Griffin family leaves for Mexico because of the hostility, but Griffin decides to stay since he was threatened with castration.
• No one castrates him, and Griffin just spends the day depressed over the lack of communication between black and white people.