Walter white naacp biography

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    pp., x , 27 illus., notes, index

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      Published: August

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    Walter White () was among the nation's preeminent champions of civil rights. With blond hair and blue eyes, he could "pass" as white even though he identified as African American, and his physical appearance allowed him to go undercover to investigate more than 40 lynchings and race riots in the years following World War I. As executive secretary of the NAACP from until his death in , White promoted the Harlem Renaissance and led influential national campaigns against lynching, segregation in the military, and racism in Hollywood movies. In this first scholarly biography, Kenneth Robert Janken considers the man who embodied many contradictions. Walter White gained access to white elite culture, establishing friendships with Eleanor Roosevelt and numerous congressmen and Supreme Court justices, but he ultimately considered himself--and wa

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    Walter White (NAACP)

    American civil rights activist (–)

    Walter Francis White (July 1, &#;–&#;March 21, ) was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, from until He directed a broad program of legal challenges to racial segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and författare av essäer.

    White first joined the NAACP as an investigator in , at the invitation of James Weldon Johnson. He acted as Johnson's assistant national secretary and traveled to the South to investigate lynchings and race riots. Being light-skinned, at times he was able to pass as white to facilitate his investigations and protect himself in tense situations. White succeeded Johnson as the head of the NAACP in an acting capacity in , taking over officially in , and led the organization until his death in [1][2] He joined the Advisory Council for the Government of the Virgin

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    Summary

    Walter F. White of Atlanta, Georgia, joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in as an assistant to Executive Secretary James Weldon Johnson. When Johnson retired in , White replaced him as head of the NAACP, a position he maintained until his death in During his long tenure, White was in the vanguard of the struggle for interracial justice. His reputation went into decline, however, in the era of grassroots activism that followed his death. White’s disagreements with the US Left, and his ambiguous racial background—he was of mixed heritage, could “pass” as white, and divorced a black woman to marry a white woman—fueled ambivalence about his legacy.

    In this comprehensive biography, Zangrando and Lewis seek to provide a reassessment of White within the context of his own time, revising critical interpretations of his career. White was a promoter of and a participant in the Harlem Renaissance, a daily fixture in the halls of Congress lobb

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