Ray Sprigle’s series ‘Black Like Me.’

Aug. 9, 1948: Newspaper clipping of the first story from Ray Sprigle’s series ”I was a Negro in the South for 30 Days” published on the front page of the Post-Gazette.

And thus Ray Sprigle begins his story: “For four endless, crawling weeks I was a Negro in the Deep South. I ate, slept, traveled, lived Black. I lodged in Negro households. I ate in Negro restaurants. I slept in Negro hotels and lodging houses. I crept through the back and side doors of railroad stations. I traveled Jim Crow in buses and trains and street cars and taxicabs. Along with 10,000,000 Negroes I endured the discrimination and oppression and cruelty of the iniquitous Jim Crow system.”

Ray Sprigle’s work was groundbreaking. His series was published 10 years prior to publication of John Griffin’s bestselling book on a similar topic, called “Black Like Me.”

You can read the entire series “I was a Negro in the South for 30 Days” here.