Walter White: The Forgotten Hero of Civil Rights

By Scholar-Griot: Dr. Fran Kaplan

Introduction

Walter Francis White, gelatin silver print by Clara Sipprell. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; bequest of Phyllis Fenner

In the story of America's fight for civil rights, certain names ring out: Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Thurgood Marshall. Yet, many figures who laid the essential groundwork for their work remain less known. Walter Francis White, who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter-century, is one such forgotten hero.

A man of fair skin and blue eyes, White chose to embrace his identity as an African American. He used his unique appearance to infiltrate the most dangerous corners of the segregated South. His career spanned from the aftermath of the Civil War into the modern civil rights movement. White’s personal identity, political savvy, and sheer courage challenged the foundations of racial injustice in America.

Early life and the making of a civil rights activist

Walter White was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1893. His parents, George and Madeline White, were born into enslavement. After Emancipation, they became well-educated and part of Atlanta's Black elite. They gave their children a sense of pride and possibility despite living under the oppressive Jim Crow system.

Like many Blacks, Walter was the descendant of a slaveholder and his slave. In a time when the "one-drop rule" defined anyone with African ancestry as Black, Walter's light complexion was a result of mixed-race heritage. Both his parents were very light-skinned. He could have chosen to "pass" as a white man, a privilege some in his position used to escape the brutality of racism. However, an event during his teenage years cemented his commitment to a Black identity and the Black struggle for equality.

In 1906, Atlanta was rocked by a devastating race riot, sparked by false rumors of assaults on white women. White mobs rampaged through Black neighborhoods, destroying property and killing people. When a mob threatened his family's home, 13-year-old Walter and his father stood guard with a rifle, prepared to defend their lives. The family was spared, but the experience was a turning point for White. In his autobiography, A Man Called White, he wrote that this moment solidified his identity and purpose, reinforcing his determination to fight for racial justice.

Following the riot, White threw himself into community organizing. After graduating from Atlanta University in 1916, he helped set up the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP. One of their first victories was a successful protest that prevented the local school board from cutting out seventh-grade education for Black students. Impressed by his leadership, NAACP field secretary, James Weldon Johnson, recruited White to join the national staff in New York in 1918.

Walter Francis White. The Crisis, Vol 15 No 5, March 1918 (page 219)

Undercover work: Investigating lynchings

When White arrived at the NAACP's headquarters, his unique background immediately proved valuable. For the next decade, he volunteered to regularly travel around the country to investigate lynchings and race riots. He posed as a white man—sometimes a salesman, sometimes a reporter—and ventured into communities where racial violence had just occurred.

The risk was immense. If his true identity were discovered, he would likely be killed. Yet, White pressed on, interviewing mob participants and other white residents who were often shockingly candid about the violence they had witnessed or participated in. The information he collected was vital. It provided the NAACP with firsthand evidence, which they used to generate public awareness and lobby for federal anti-lynching legislation. During these dangerous years, White investigated 41 lynchings and 8 race riots. His investigative exploits were detailed in his 1929 book, Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch, provided hard evidence and expert analysis of lynching in America.

A new direction for the NAACP

By 1931, White had risen through the ranks to become the executive secretary of the NAACP, the head of the organization. He inherited an organization that had already proven a powerful voice for civil rights, but White would usher in a new, much more assertive era of legal and political activism.

The architects of the NAACP legal strategy, 1933. Left to right: Walter White, executive secretary; Charles Houston, lead counsel; James G. Tyson, Leon A. Ransomeand Edward P. Lovett. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Under White's leadership, the NAACP sharpened its focus on legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement. He set up the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and hired a young, brilliant attorney named Thurgood Marshall to lead it. Together, they arranged a detailed legal campaign to chip away at the legal foundations of Jim Crow. This resulted in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. White would not live to see the full impact of school desegregation. However, his idea to use the courts to dismantle segregation became a crucial piece of civil rights strategy.