As an occasional binger on "The Vinyl Cafe", I remember the Morley Book Club story where she refused to share her favourite books with the evil book club group. One of the books she mentioned was "Black Like Me" - John Howard Griffin.
I had never read this book, but was intrigued. I really did like it - it seems odd how commonplace segregation was in such a recent period (end of the '50's beginning of the '60's), and the book does a very good job of illustrating how much more difficult, frustrating and demeaning the split policies were - having separate washrooms doesn't sound too terrible, until you add in that there might be a "white" washroom in every building, and only one or two "black" washrooms in an entire town.
This book certainly does set the table for the unrest the U.S. felt in the mid to late '60's. The world of the south portrayed in Griffin's book certainly sounds light-years away from the world I saw in the '70's - the ideas of equality certainly seemed "normal" and "universal" by my youth - it is shocking what 10 years does.
A very good read.
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