{"id":708,"date":"2011-08-25T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2011\/01\/one-of-my-heroes-john-howard-griffin.html"},"modified":"2011-08-24T16:02:04","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T20:02:04","slug":"one-of-my-heroes-john-howard-griffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/08\/one-of-my-heroes-john-howard-griffin.html","title":{"rendered":"The Sankofa Institute Online: Uncommon Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"
John Howard Griffin is one of my heroes.<\/div>\n
He’s the white man who took the amazing journey of living as a black man in the Deep South in the late 1950’s. \u00a0Ultimately, he recorded his saga in a book, Black Like Me<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0He drew his title from the closing lines of a poem called, “Dream variations” by jazz poet Langston Hughes (“Night Coming tenderly, Black like me”<\/em>). I wrote about him in my book, Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith<\/a><\/em>, for he is a wonderful example as to what it means to “Develop Our Ear.”<\/div>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s new documentary John Howard Griffin called, Uncommon Vision: \u00a0The Life and times of John Howard Griffin<\/a>. \u00a0UrbanFaith.com recently interviewed filmmaker Morgan Atkinson about his work (read it here)<\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/object><\/div>\n
The film is both informative and inspiring. \u00a0It tells of his years of blindness and conversion to Christ. \u00a0Mostly, it tells the tale of how Griffin decided to discover for himself what it was actually like to live as a black man in American during the late 1950’s–to listen incarnate. \u00a0Aided by medication and sun lamps, he darkened his skin. \u00a0With shaved head he set \u00a0out on a spectacular journey into the land of lynching, segregation, and oppression. \u00a0He models for us the way of incarnation. \u00a0Griffin was able to speak to the problem of race in American because he was willing to become one with the oppressed in order to speak prophetically on their behalf. \u00a0 I admire this man who chose to experience a foreign pain and struggle.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Howard Griffin is one of my heroes. He’s the white man who took the amazing journey of living as a black man in the Deep South in the late 1950’s. \u00a0Ultimately, he recorded his saga in a book, Black Like Me. \u00a0He drew his title from the closing lines of a poem called, “Dream…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[62,61,60],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-music-movies","category-sankofa-leadership-institute","tag-black-like-me","tag-john-howard-griffin","tag-uncommon-vision"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Sankofa Institute Online: Uncommon Vision - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/08\/one-of-my-heroes-john-howard-griffin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Sankofa Institute Online: Uncommon Vision - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Howard Griffin is one of my heroes. He’s the white man who took the amazing journey of living as a black man in the Deep South in the late 1950’s. \u00a0Ultimately, he recorded his saga in a book, Black Like Me. \u00a0He drew his title from the closing lines of a poem called, “Dream…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/08\/one-of-my-heroes-john-howard-griffin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-25T12:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-24T20:02:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Sankofa Institute Online: Uncommon Vision - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/08\/one-of-my-heroes-john-howard-griffin.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Sankofa Institute Online: Uncommon Vision - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"John Howard Griffin is one of my heroes. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/1312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}