Black Like Me James Whitmore DVD

This very powerful drama is a must have for ones movie collection. James

Whitmore puts on a very powerful and rememorable performance.

Plot: Black Like Me is the true account of John Griffin’s experiences when he

passed as a black man. John Horton takes treatments to darken his skin and

leaves his home in Texas to travel throughout the South. At one stop,

Horton encounters a black shoe shine man, Burt Wilson, who befriends him

and shows him how to “act right” so that he can fit more easily into the

African American culture. It is through Wilson that Horton learns the art of

shining shoes. Most of his encounters with whites are quite degrading and

disturb him. As a hitchhiker, John meets several white men who refer to

black men and women in disparaging ways which angers John. Throughout

the movie, John is harassed and persecuted by whites without reason. In one

of his many stops throughout the South, John finds himself on a park bench

sitting by a white woman. A white man walks by and says, “You’d better find

another place to sit.” Even though he had a college degree, menial jobs were

all that he could find. John meets Frank Newcomb whose son, Tom, is arrested

for some civil rights demonstrations. John tells Tom about his “passing for black”

in the South, and Tom becomes enraged. Tom feels that John could have served

the plight of the black man in the South better as a white man. Frank asks

John if people would believe the story. Tom says, “I don’t know, but I’ll

tell them.”

The dvd is encoded NTSC REGION 0(playable on dvd players worldwide).