Walter White

Walter Francis White (July 1, 1893, Atlanta, Georgia - March 21, 1955, New York, New York) was an African American who became a spokesman for his community in the United States for almost a quarter of a century, and served as executive secretary (1931-1955) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He graduated from Atlanta University in 1916 (now Clark Atlanta University). In 1918 he joined the small national staff of the NAACP in New York at the invitation of James Weldon Johnson. White acted as Johnson's assistant national secretary. In 1931 he succeeded him at the helm of the NAACP.

White oversaw the plans and organizational structure of the fight against public segregation. Under his leadership, the NAACP set up the Legal Defense Fund, which raised numerous legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement, and achieved many successes. Among these was the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which determined that segregated education was inherently unequal. He was the virtual author of President Truman's presidential order desegregating the armed forces after the Second World War. White also quintupled NAACP membership to nearly 500,000.[1]

During the Joseph McCarthy era of political repression and persecution, White did not criticize McCarthy’s actions in Congress, as he believed there would be a backlash that would cost the NAACP their tax-exempt status and lead to equating Civil Rights with Soviet Communism.[2]

In addition to his NAACP work, White was a journalist, novelist, and essayist, and influential in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.


[edit] Personal