Eddie Murphy went undercover as a white guy. You can see the results here: http://www.jokaroo.com/funnyvideos/white_eddie_murphy.html <=== Video loads on that link.
Hoax? 
I don’t have any information regarding Black Like Me, but I thought it might be of interest to note FX’s new show premiering in March: Black.White.
That was too cool. He is a genius with makeup and characters. I wish he had used it in the same way as Griffin!
Wow! That show is about exactly this stuff! I am going to check it out!
There was another male reporter who disguised himself as a black man and spent 30 days in the South His experience was pretty much identical to Griffin’s.
And gosh, Griffin doesn’t look black at all compared to a real black man like Jean Toomer
IIRC That book involved claims of telepathy among the Aborigines.
RE Black Like Me
I fail to see the problem. Black people come in a wide variety of shapes and colors. The linked picture of Griffin would not stand out.
I got this from some movieTV makeup artist special effects website years ago. i can’t seem to find it anymore.
Black woman with makeup, contacts, nose pros. & wig passing as white
See also
Check out these pictures of Walter White, the NAACP’s one-time National Secretary and then tell me that John Griffin couldn’t pass.
The fact that society was ripe for such an “undercover” investigation was exactly why Griffin did it. Given that fact that it is entirely plausible, given Griffin’s appearance in disguise and the unlikelihood that anybody would question his self-identification; the nature of the rest of his career; and the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any serious evidence that he fabricated it, I don’t see any reason to doubt his account.