I just now learned about this man, reason being I was listening to my local NPR news station. Now I can’t get enough about knowing more of him. Thank you for posting this video!
The name WALTER F. WHITE (1892-1955) should be more widely known to all Americans, especially those people who love and cherish democracy and believe that the United States, for all its boasts, should always strive to "form a more perfect Union." For no nation that calls itself a democracy is free if the rights of any of its citizens are threatened or stripped away from them. Prior to reading 'White Lies', I had a dim awareness of who Walter White was. I knew that he was a light-skinned African American man (who could easily be mistaken for a white man) who had headed America's oldest civil rights organization, the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at a time when Jim Crow segregation was firmly set in law across the country (in particular, in the South) and the rights of African Americans were not respected by government and mainstream society. I had occasionally seen photos of Walter White, some showing him with historical figures more familiar to me such as Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. But he wasn't someone I gave much thought to. Besides, in all my U.S. history classes I had had in public school and college, his name never came up. Then along came this book, which I first saw online many weeks ago, and I later watched a TV interview with its author. My curiosity was piqued and so, I went to the local library and borrowed the book. What a life this man had! Walter White was born and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia at a time when Jim Crow segregation laws were being established and tightly maintained in the South --- in addition to voting rights being taken away from African Americans who, by virtue of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, were entitled to equal protection under law and the vote just like any other American --- where white supremacy was openly asserted and forcefully maintained through sanctioned intimidation and violence by racist white people and state governments. Indeed, when Walter White was in his early teens, he was a witness (along with his father, who was also a very light-skinned African American man) to the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. At least 6 African Americans were murdered before his eyes. Years later, Walter White would say that it was this experience which decided for him what he would do with his life. He would stand with his fellow African Americans and do what he could to help them achieve their civil and constitutional rights. Walter White became involved in the fight for civil rights while he was a student at Atlanta University during the 1910s. He and a number of African Americans in Atlanta were successful in thwarting the efforts of the Atlanta public school system to deny entry to the 7th grade for African American students in the city. (The prevailing attitude was that African Americans were incapable of higher learning and better suited as servants and farm workers.) It was also during this time that Walter White made the acquaintance of James Weldon Johnson, the distinguished African American writer, diplomat, educator, and civil rights activist with the nascent NAACP. Johnson had spoken at a gathering in Atlanta attended by Walter White, who later met Johnson and struck up an acquaintance with him. Walter White graduated from Atlanta University in 1916 and went on to work for Standard Life (an insurance company) in Atlanta. For an African American at that time, it was a good job to have. Walter White was fairly content with his life. Then he received an invitation from James Weldon Johnson from New York City to come north and join the NAACP. This was in February 1918. There was nothing to hold him back in Atlanta. (Walter White had been subject to the draft following the U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917. So, when he went to the induction center, he was found to be physically unfit for military service.) From the moment Walter White set down roots in New York and became fully immersed in his job with the NAACP, his life became one of unremitting struggle and toil. Over the next decade, Walter White undertook several undercover missions to the South --- assuming the guise of a white journalist --- "to investigate lynchings, racist murders, and riots [e.g., the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921]. Then he would travel back north to report his findings to [African American] newspapers" --- as well as to the NAACP. In reading the chapters of White Lies which dealt with this part of Walter White's life, I was deeply moved by the sheer guts of this man to hazard his life as much as he did. Never once did Walter White shrink from uncovering as much of the truth behind these racist crimes as he could. He had several close calls in which word was whispered round among some of the Southern whites with whom he was in contact of a "colored man passing for white" and what the locals would do to him were they to get their hands on him! Toward the end of the 1920s, Walter White came to believe that the NAACP should begin to establish itself as an influential force in using suasion to compel political leaders to actively challenge Jim Crow segregation laws and practices, as well as hire African American lawyers (and any other lawyers committed to fighting for civil rights for African Americans) to fight against segregation in the courts. Walter White's first direct involvement in electoral politics took place during the 1928 presidential campaign, when he was asked by Al Smith, formerly Governor of New York, and Democratic presidential candidate who happened to be Catholic, to use his influence to bring the African American vote into play for the Democrats. This was a big ask. From the days of Reconstruction and for up to 60 years afterwards, African Americans as a bloc, solidly voted Republican. After all, the Republican Party had been "the Party of Lincoln." The Democratic Party, by contrast, tended to support segregation and white supremacy in the South. But it had become clear to Walter White that the Republican Party had come to take the African American vote for granted and had retreated from its earlier support for full political and economic rights for African Americans. Walter White had a vision of the future of the U.S. political system, which he spelled out as follows: "Eventually it appears to me that we are going to have an entirely new political alignment --- the Republicans will absorb the anti-Negro south and become, through the compromises necessary to gain that end, the relatively anti-Negro party, while the Negro will find refuge in the democratic party controlled by the north. ... Such an arrangement will not, I know, take place immediately but from present indications will occur before many decades have passed." Walter White would go on to be made Chief Executive of the NAACP in 1931, a position he would hold until his death. 'White Lies' also explores much of Walter White's personal life, his role in the Harlem Renaissance, and his own literary output. I cannot praise this book enough. It taught me so much about this remarkable man who literally worked himself to death.
I have never heard of him until today and I’m so shocked about it! Yes TikTok gets a lot of flack, but it, along with other social media sites, are very effective in spreading knowledge.
Your comment about Walter looking "strange" is in accurate. During that period after the Civil War into the early 20th Century, many African-Americans looked like Walter...fair skinned with Caucasian features. If you look at his class photo from Atlanta University you will see several young men and a few of the young women who appear to be Caucasian, but are not. And they, like Walter, are not biracial. There parents are not Caucasian. Some people from that Era passed into White society, but most did not. Just a slight cultural correction here. Thanks!
I just read a biography about Hattie McDaniel. Walter White all but destroyed her enormously hard-fought career because he didn't like her characterizations of black women. Never did he realize her brilliance was in her subtlies. The first black PERSON to win an Oscar thereby putting black people at the same level as whites. None of this mattered to him. But today we all remember the REMARKABLE HATTIE MCDANIEL. Oddly enough, after Walter White destroyed her career, she immediately organized the black homeowners of Sugar Hill, a prestigious neighborhood in LA but tha had restrictive covenants. Whites began to utilize these instruments to try to take away the homes of the blacks. Because of lawsuits brought as a result of Ms. McDaniel's organization skills, ultimately the issue went to the Supreme Court who abolished restrictive covenants as Unconstitutional. Hattie McDaniel went on to become an icon of radio then after a brief but popular stint on teevee, she died of breast cancer at a young age. Thank you, Mr. Baime, for this lecture. I ordered your book from Amazon today and very much look forward to reading it.
I don't like the fact he pushed Lena Horne but tbh the fact that the characters she supposedly played displayed us in the same manner as we are viewed as today kinda was right. Kinda like the Tyler Perry thing in how he depicts black women as angry, bitter and single mothers. Do I agree with everything he did No, but blacks are depicted in the same way in alot of movies , TV shows etc & just to be famous , and or rich alot of us sell out our culture. But again it's acting I guess .
He also turned against Paul Robeson during the McCarthy Era of Communist witch hunts. This is notable because Walter White had been a champion of Robeson and other black artists during the Harlem Renaissance . White was a complicated- and conflicted man who is largely forgotten today. But he was a giant in his day- and the book is a good read.
Why? When there are so many Black Men who look like Walter White, who no doubt would be willing to shred their, white man card - and it's privileges for the notoriety and financial fortune to play Walter White:).
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I just now learned about this man, reason being I was listening to my local NPR news station. Now I can’t get enough about knowing more of him. Thank you for posting this video!
Same here !! .. Listening to "Fresh Air" on NPR @ Walter White .. 😮😐😊
Exactly my situation!! Just heard it on NPR and I begin to research it and stumbled on this video. Thanks for this informative article
The name WALTER F. WHITE (1892-1955) should be more widely known to all Americans, especially those people who love and cherish democracy and believe that the United States, for all its boasts, should always strive to "form a more perfect Union." For no nation that calls itself a democracy is free if the rights of any of its citizens are threatened or stripped away from them.
Prior to reading 'White Lies', I had a dim awareness of who Walter White was. I knew that he was a light-skinned African American man (who could easily be mistaken for a white man) who had headed America's oldest civil rights organization, the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at a time when Jim Crow segregation was firmly set in law across the country (in particular, in the South) and the rights of African Americans were not respected by government and mainstream society. I had occasionally seen photos of Walter White, some showing him with historical figures more familiar to me such as Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. But he wasn't someone I gave much thought to. Besides, in all my U.S. history classes I had had in public school and college, his name never came up.
Then along came this book, which I first saw online many weeks ago, and I later watched a TV interview with its author. My curiosity was piqued and so, I went to the local library and borrowed the book. What a life this man had!
Walter White was born and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia at a time when Jim Crow segregation laws were being established and tightly maintained in the South --- in addition to voting rights being taken away from African Americans who, by virtue of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, were entitled to equal protection under law and the vote just like any other American --- where white supremacy was openly asserted and forcefully maintained through sanctioned intimidation and violence by racist white people and state governments. Indeed, when Walter White was in his early teens, he was a witness (along with his father, who was also a very light-skinned African American man) to the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. At least 6 African Americans were murdered before his eyes. Years later, Walter White would say that it was this experience which decided for him what he would do with his life. He would stand with his fellow African Americans and do what he could to help them achieve their civil and constitutional rights.
Walter White became involved in the fight for civil rights while he was a student at Atlanta University during the 1910s. He and a number of African Americans in Atlanta were successful in thwarting the efforts of the Atlanta public school system to deny entry to the 7th grade for African American students in the city. (The prevailing attitude was that African Americans were incapable of higher learning and better suited as servants and farm workers.) It was also during this time that Walter White made the acquaintance of James Weldon Johnson, the distinguished African American writer, diplomat, educator, and civil rights activist with the nascent NAACP. Johnson had spoken at a gathering in Atlanta attended by Walter White, who later met Johnson and struck up an acquaintance with him.
Walter White graduated from Atlanta University in 1916 and went on to work for Standard Life (an insurance company) in Atlanta. For an African American at that time, it was a good job to have. Walter White was fairly content with his life. Then he received an invitation from James Weldon Johnson from New York City to come north and join the NAACP. This was in February 1918. There was nothing to hold him back in Atlanta. (Walter White had been subject to the draft following the U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917. So, when he went to the induction center, he was found to be physically unfit for military service.)
From the moment Walter White set down roots in New York and became fully immersed in his job with the NAACP, his life became one of unremitting struggle and toil. Over the next decade, Walter White undertook several undercover missions to the South --- assuming the guise of a white journalist --- "to investigate lynchings, racist murders, and riots [e.g., the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921]. Then he would travel back north to report his findings to [African American] newspapers" --- as well as to the NAACP.
In reading the chapters of White Lies which dealt with this part of Walter White's life, I was deeply moved by the sheer guts of this man to hazard his life as much as he did. Never once did Walter White shrink from uncovering as much of the truth behind these racist crimes as he could. He had several close calls in which word was whispered round among some of the Southern whites with whom he was in contact of a "colored man passing for white" and what the locals would do to him were they to get their hands on him!
Toward the end of the 1920s, Walter White came to believe that the NAACP should begin to establish itself as an influential force in using suasion to compel political leaders to actively challenge Jim Crow segregation laws and practices, as well as hire African American lawyers (and any other lawyers committed to fighting for civil rights for African Americans) to fight against segregation in the courts.
Walter White's first direct involvement in electoral politics took place during the 1928 presidential campaign, when he was asked by Al Smith, formerly Governor of New York, and Democratic presidential candidate who happened to be Catholic, to use his influence to bring the African American vote into play for the Democrats. This was a big ask. From the days of Reconstruction and for up to 60 years afterwards, African Americans as a bloc, solidly voted Republican. After all, the Republican Party had been "the Party of Lincoln." The Democratic Party, by contrast, tended to support segregation and white supremacy in the South. But it had become clear to Walter White that the Republican Party had come to take the African American vote for granted and had retreated from its earlier support for full political and economic rights for African Americans. Walter White had a vision of the future of the U.S. political system, which he spelled out as follows:
"Eventually it appears to me that we are going to have an entirely new political alignment --- the Republicans will absorb the anti-Negro south and become, through the compromises necessary to gain that end, the relatively anti-Negro party, while the Negro will find refuge in the democratic party controlled by the north. ... Such an arrangement will not, I know, take place immediately but from present indications will occur before many decades have passed."
Walter White would go on to be made Chief Executive of the NAACP in 1931, a position he would hold until his death.
'White Lies' also explores much of Walter White's personal life, his role in the Harlem Renaissance, and his own literary output. I cannot praise this book enough. It taught me so much about this remarkable man who literally worked himself to death.
I have never heard of him until today and I’m so shocked about it! Yes TikTok gets a lot of flack, but it, along with other social media sites, are very effective in spreading knowledge.
While Tik Tok may pique your curiosity about a subject, why not incentivize yourself by studying the subject in depth? Knowledge is power.
Your comment about Walter looking "strange" is in accurate. During that period after the Civil War into the early 20th Century, many African-Americans looked like Walter...fair skinned with Caucasian features. If you look at his class photo from Atlanta University you will see several young men and a few of the young women who appear to be Caucasian, but are not. And they, like Walter, are not biracial. There parents are not Caucasian. Some people from that Era passed into White society, but most did not. Just a slight cultural correction here. Thanks!
I, as well as my son, went to the school in Brooklyn, NY, named after Walter F. White (P.S. 41), but I do not remember learning about him in school.
I just read a biography about Hattie McDaniel. Walter White all but destroyed her enormously hard-fought career because he didn't like her characterizations of black women. Never did he realize her brilliance was in her subtlies. The first black PERSON to win an Oscar thereby putting black people at the same level as whites. None of this mattered to him. But today we all remember the REMARKABLE HATTIE MCDANIEL. Oddly enough, after Walter White destroyed her career, she immediately organized the black homeowners of Sugar Hill, a prestigious neighborhood in LA but tha had restrictive covenants. Whites began to utilize these instruments to try to take away the homes of the blacks. Because of lawsuits brought as a result of Ms. McDaniel's organization skills, ultimately the issue went to the Supreme Court who abolished restrictive covenants as Unconstitutional. Hattie McDaniel went on to become an icon of radio then after a brief but popular stint on teevee, she died of breast cancer at a young age. Thank you, Mr. Baime, for this lecture. I ordered your book from Amazon today and very much look forward to reading it.
I don't like the fact he pushed Lena Horne but tbh the fact that the characters she supposedly played displayed us in the same manner as we are viewed as today kinda was right. Kinda like the Tyler Perry thing in how he depicts black women as angry, bitter and single mothers. Do I agree with everything he did No, but blacks are depicted in the same way in alot of movies , TV shows etc & just to be famous , and or rich alot of us sell out our culture. But again it's acting I guess .
He also turned against Paul Robeson during the McCarthy Era of Communist witch hunts. This is notable because Walter White had been a champion of Robeson and other black artists during the Harlem Renaissance . White was a complicated- and conflicted man who is largely forgotten today. But he was a giant in his day- and the book is a good read.
This commentary is excellent!
I knew about Walter F White however this is my first time watching this episode… very informative … thank you for posting
I recommend they get Bryan Cranston to play him in the movie.
All kidding aside (Perhaps not, Cranston might be a good fit though probably too tall), amazing, interesting story.
Get a white guy to play a light-skinned black man. Nothing changes.
I agree 👍 with you 💯%
@@gracewoodard9134 bro is whiter than my entire lineage and I'm not even black
Why? When there are so many Black Men who look like Walter White, who no doubt would be willing to shred their, white man card - and it's privileges for the notoriety and financial fortune to play Walter White:).
I am finally watching this program, I missed it due to being at work. I have a.j. baime 's books on truman and I thought they were great!
Ironically there a villain called the same
Fascinating. I have never heard of him before and that is strange actually.
Thanks to a random Reddit post I learned about this man. Very interesting content.
White wrote his autobiography A Man Called White (1948). It;s sad that when you Google his name, a TV actor comes up first.
Walter White was no good
Why are white people always trying to talk about what they did we no what you no good people did
Why?
In reality ... EVERYONE IS ... BROWN ... !!!!!!!
JESSE WHO IS THIS MAN MAKING A VIDEO ABOUT ME