Content Warning: This section of the study guide contains detailed discussions of racism and violence motivated by racism, including references to lynching and suicide. The source material includes outdated and offensive racial terms and slurs, which are reproduced in this guide only via quotations.

Griffin prefaces his account by explaining to the reader that his account is honest, is as complete as he was able to make it, and, as far as he knows, accurately describes what life was like for Black folks living under segregation. Griffin argues that the details are not what’s important; instead, it is the common experience of marginalized peoples that matters, and Griffin believes that his story would have been, at its core, the same if he had impersonated someone from another persecuted group. Griffin also foreshadows changes to his personality and worldview that occur as he spends more time in this role.

While staying at his parents’ farm in Mansfield, Texas, Griffin wonders what it is like to be discriminated against for an immutable trait such as skin color. He thinks about the wide divide between Black and white people of the South and wonders what he can do to bridge it.