John Howard Griffin

John Howard Griffin was born in Texas in 1920. As a student in France in 1939 he was caught up with the outbreak of the Second World War, and worked with the French Resistance before joining the US Army. Hit by shrapnel in an air raid, he lost his sight; a bout of spinal malaria in 1955 led to the paralysis of his lower body, but remarkably he regained both his sight and the use of his legs two years later. After the publication of Black Like Me he worked as a human rights activist, and taught at the University of Peace. He died in 1980.