Black for a Day: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy

231 Pages·2017·5.57 MB·English

by  Alisha Gaines

Black for a Day
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Black for a Day
White Fantasies of Race and Empathy
Alisha Gaines
The University of North Carolina Press c hapel hill
This book was published with the assistance of the John Hope Franklin Fund
of the University of North Carolina Press.
© 2017 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca
Set in Espinosa Nova by Westchester Publishing Ser vices
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green
Press Initiative since 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Gaines, Alisha, author.
Title: Black for a day : white fantasies of race and empathy / Alisha Gaines.
Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccN 2016046558 | iSBN 9781469632827 (cloth : alk. paper) |
iSBN 9781469632834 (pbk : alk. paper) | iSBN 9781469632841 (ebook)
Subjects: lcSh: United States—R ace relations— History—20th century. |
Passing (Identity)— United States—H istory—20th c entury. |
Impersonation. | Empathy— Political aspects. | African Americans— Social
conditions—20th century.
Classification: lcc e185.625 .G35 2017 | DDc 305.800973— dc23
lc rec ord available at https: / / lccn . loc . gov / 2016046558
Cover illustration: © iStockphoto.com/Abel Mitja Varela
Portions of chapter 3 were originally published as “A Second hand Kind
of Terror,” in From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to The Help: Critical Perspectives on
White- Authored Narratives of Black Life, edited by Claire Oberon Garcia,
Vershawn Ashanti Young, and Charise Pimentel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
In Memory of
Gail Booker Peterson and Jurina Vincent- Lee
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Contents
Acknowl edgments xi
Introduction 1
Once You Go Black
chapter oNe
Good Niggerhood 14
Ray Sprigle’s Dixie Terror
chapter two
The Missing Day 51
John Howard Griffin and the Specter of Joseph Franklin
chapter three
A Secondh and Kind of Terror 83
Grace Halsell and the Ironies of Empathy
chapter four
Empathy TV 121
Family and Racial Intimacy on Black.White.
Epilogue 158
The Last Soul Sister
Notes 173
Bibliography 189
Index 199
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Illustrations
Senator Billboard Rawkins in Finian’s Rainbow 3
Senator Billboard Rawkins seeing himself black 5
John Howard Griffin on the cover of Sepia magazine 52
The final chronicle of John Howard Griffin’s “Journey into Shame” 58
The October 1960 cover of Sepia magazine 66
James Whitmore as John Finley Horton in the film Black Like Me 69
John Finley Horton defending his articles in the film Black Like Me 78
The cover of Grace Halsell’s Soul Sister 98
Sketches of Grace Halsell in Ebony magazine 116
Rose Wurgel in the makeup chair on Black.White. 134
Carmen Wurgel before and after her racial transformation 135
Rachel Dolezal during the KXLY interview 159