Commissioned by MacMillan as a book on racism for young adults, A Time To Be Human was published in 1977. It was Griffin's last book about racism (and human rights issues), as well as a summation of all his work in this area:. With Black Like Me and The Church and the Black Man it forms a remarkable trilogy. The text reprises the Black Like Me experience with different anecdotes and a re-evaluation of the 1960s; and it draws on many of his Sepia articles from the 1970s, as well as updated materials. Begun as a tape recording, Griffin worked up the published book through three manuscript drafts, giving the scholar a rare overview of his method.. The series includes Griffin's Original Typescript of the First Draft, a 73 page manuscript, with the author's corrections. Major changes can be studied in Griffin's Second Draft, also the Original Typescript, which runs to 71 manuscript pages. Finally, there is the 75 page manuscript of the Final Draft (a photocopy), including both the author's and the editor's changes. The Editor in this instance was David Reuther of MacMillan, who had made Griffin's acquaintance through correspondence regarding another MacMillan publication for young adults--the Cornelia and Irving Sussman biography of Thomas Merton. Griffin provided the cover photographs for the Merton biography, as well as advice to its authors, the husband and wife team who were his close friends (see their correspondence in Series VII)
