Walter White was affectionately called “ Mr NAACP ” by African Americans during his lifetime. Walter White who dedicated his whole life to the upliftment of his people; has become the ‘ forgotten man of African American history ‘.

In 2014 I read on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s web site a quote by Carter G. Woodson about those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished, will lose the inspiration that comes from that knowledge of their accomplishments.

The NAACP is more guilty of this than any other organization.

The only historical person in the NAACP known by most African Americans is Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois .

But Dr Du Bois , was never the leader of the NAACP.

Walter White the Caucasian looking African American man, was the leader of the NAACP from 1931 until his death in 1955.

The majority of African Americans today, don’t know anything about Walter White.

I recently read a biography and also his autobiography and a few books written by Walter White.

I was surprised by the things he accomplished as the leader of the NAACP.

He was a blonde haired, blue eyes, and very proud of his African ancestry.

He was the leader of the NAACP for over 20 years.

He was born in Georgia to very light complexion African American parents.

Walter White in a family photo

During the 1930s, his father died, when he was taken to a ‘ whites ‘ only hospital after a traffic accident.

When the hospital staff discovered he was of African descent; they had him transported to the ‘ negro ‘ hospital without treating him.

Because of the delay in treatment he died soon after.

Walter White played a significant role in every achievement made for African Americans during the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s; up until his death in 1955.

He personally lobbied members of the US Congress and Senate for many years without success to pass an Anti-Lynching Bill.

He risked his life on numerous occasions to find out first hand, about many lynchings in America.

Because of his Caucasian looking appearance, he gathered first-hand information, from many people who were either witnesses or participants of these lynchings.

During one visit to a town where a lynching had taken place; he was told by a Caucasian man that they had found out that a negro posing as a ‘white’ was going to be identified and killed.

The man didn’t realise that he was talking to the man who was supposed to be killed later that day.

Walter White quickly left town before they discovered his true identity.

WALTER WHITE AND HOLLYWOOD

During the 1940s he spoke to the heads of the major Hollywood studios about the negative images being portrayed in films about African Americans.

They pledged that they would make changes in the way that African Americans were portrayed.

Later actors like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte were the results of this pledge, the studio chiefs had made to Walter White.

WALTER WHITE ARMY RESEARCHER

During WWII there were many racial incident at many of the locations where African American military men were stationed.

Not just racial animosity from the local civilian Caucasians; but also from fellow military members of the Caucasian race.

On many military installations; large scale fighting erupted between the races.

He made a fact finding trip during WWII to the countries in Europe and Asia where African American military men and women were deployed.

He was tasked with finding a solution to the racial friction between the races.

He then inform General Eisenhower and other top military brass of his findings and his thoughts of a possibly solution.

He contributed to the creation of the Tuskegee Airmen , and because of his friendship with First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, he made sure that the Tuskegee Airmen were involved in the fight against fascism in Africa and Europe.

Later he was instrumental in the ending of racial separation in the military .

The US military became integrated, like it was during the American Revolutionary War , against Britain in the 18th century.

Also he fought for the right, of African Americans becoming member of the major Unions.

He organized Marian Anderson’s concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC , after the racist members of the Daughters of the American Revolution had objected to her performance at their building, and many other things that cannot be written here.

Walter White speaking to military members during WWII Walter White speaking to military members during WWII

He was close personal friend of Eleanor Roosevelt the wife of the President of the USA and thus had the ear of her husband, President Roosevelt .

Walter White and Eleanor Roosevelt and President Truman

He was affectionately called Mr. NAACP by the majority of African Americans.

One prominent and wealthy racist Caucasian woman once told him that he was a fool for identifying himself as an African American when he could easily pass for a Caucasian.

He said her remark was so idiotic that he didn’t even bother to give her a reply.

Many people don’t understand the significant of Walter White’s life.

He could have done what many other light complexion African Americans did in the past (and some are still doing now ); that is go somewhere where he was not know and pretend to be a Caucasian.

Many Caucasian racists hated him because he did not do that.

They felt that he should have been proud of his Caucasian appearance; and just be selfish and make his own life comfortable.

He was a contradiction to their claims of Caucasian supremacy .

He was proud of his African ancestry; and he was doing everything he could to stop discrimination against his people.

He was like Prophet Moses who was raised in the ‘ household of Pharaoh ‘.

But his heart and mind was always with his people .

As I said above: Walter White risked his life many times by going to cities and town; where there had been lynchings of African Americans.

He got first hand information from ordinary Caucasians; some of whom may have participated in the lynchings.

They spoke openly to him because they thought he was a Caucasian, just like them.

For the past 60 years; for whatever reasons, the NAACP has chosen to ignore Walter White and the major contributions he made towards the upliftment of our people.

For the past 60 years the NAACP have treated him as an insignificant person in the history of the NAACP and African Americans.

The majority of African American today don’t know anything about him.

We all know and love W.E.B. Du Boise but we know nothing about Walter White.

In fact many of us erroneously believe that Du Boise was the leader of the NAACP during that era, when in fact he was just the editor of the NAACP newsletter, The Crisis .

Did Walter White become the forgotten man of African American history, because of his Caucasian appearance?

Even during his lifetime many people didn’t believe that he was really of African descent.

Maybe the NAACP became ashamed of Walter White during the “ black and beautiful’ era of the late 1960s.

Maybe they thought that, Walter White looked too much like a Caucasian to be looked up to as a ‘ black hero ‘.

Roy Wilkins then assistant to Walter White, and Thurgood Marshall

I believe that because of the ingratitude shown by the NAACP towards Walter White and not recognizing and preserving his memory, the NAACP will soon vanish as a credible organization in the eyes of African Americans.

The NAACP should have invested funds into making movies to inform the people about the lives of all those wonderful leaders ( Ida B. Wells , James Weldon Johnson , W.E.B. Dubois , Walter White ) of the NAACP who risked their lives for many, many years; to help promote the rights of our people.

If the NAACP does not even have the courage and insight to promote their past leaders; then, how do they expect us to take them for anything other than clowns who like to dress up and go to their annual fancy, Image Awards ball.

IN ADDITION THE NAACP NEEDS A NAME CHANGE.

I suggested that instead of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP);

The name should be changed to the National Association for the Advancement of Poor People (NAAPP) 🙂

After all, helping poor people of all races within our country was the direction that Dr Martin Luther King was heading in ; when he was murdered in 1968.

I SENT THAT SUGGESTION TO THE NAACP IN 2009; BUT THEY IGNORED IT.

I also made the same suggestion to the Congressional Black Caucus , to change their name to the Congressional Caucus for Poor People ; but they also ignored my suggestion

See the excerpt of an article from Time Magazine about Walter White, below this picture of the NAACP members at their fancy dress ball.

(The following as taken from Time.com)

In the dated language of the day, his obituary in the New York Times referred to him as “a Negro by choice,” explaining:

Only five-thirty-seconds of his ancestry was Negro. His skin was fair, his hair blond, his eyes blue and his features Caucasian.

He could easily have joined the 12,000 Negroes who pass the color-line and disappear into the white majority every year in this country.

But if Walter White was a “Negro by choice,” it wasn’t a choice made arbitrarily—and his first-hand knowledge of the facts of life for African Americans was personal, deep and real.

Both of his parents had been born into slavery, and although they went on to earn college degrees and pursue middle-class careers as a postal worker (his father) and teacher (his mother), they endured ruthless discrimination throughout their lives.

As TIME elaborated in 1938:

[White] remembers that his father’s house was almost burned down during an Atlanta race riot in his childhood.

He recalls too that his father died in agony when the surgeons of the white ward of an Atlanta hospital, to which he had been mistakenly taken for an emergency operation, balked upon learning his race and insisted on shipping him in the rain to the Negro ward across the street.

While he was a highly esteemed activist and a powerful champion of anti-lynching legislation, he was occasionally rebuffed in the black community by those who mistook him for a white outsider.

In his autobiography, A Man Called White

The man lashed out bitterly, saying, “Why don’t you look where you’re going? You white folks are always trampling on colored people.”

White knew as well as anyone that his life would have been vastly simpler if he had capitalized on his skin color and, as the Times put it, “disappear[ed] into the white majority.”

But he refused to turn his back on his heritage — or on those who couldn’t so easily disappear from the injustices of the Jim Crow era.

As he put it in his book:

“ I am not white . There is nothing within my mind and heart which tempts me to think I am .

Yet I realize acutely that the only characteristic which matters to either the white or the colored race—the appearance of whiteness—is mine.

There is magic in a white skin; there is tragedy, loneliness, exile, in a black skin.”

Through his activism White helped ease some of that tragedy, loneliness, and exile.

After he died, TIME called him a “dogged lobbyist” who had “a major hand in virtually every civil-rights law enacted” during his NAACP leadership.

Indeed, TIME concludes that 1955 obituary with the observation, “ As Walter White died, his old enemy Jim Crow was dying too .”

Read a 1938 profile of Walter White, here in the TIME archives: Black’s White

READ ALSO:

WE ARE COMMITTING A MAJOR ERROR, IN CALLING CAUCASIANS ‘WHITE.’

SEEING THEMSELVES AS THE “WHITE RACE,” IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY MANY CAUCASIANS CONTINUE TO BELIEVE, THAT THEY ARE A SUPERIOR RACE.

Click below to ‘read’ the article.

Read the auto-biography of my first 13 years, living in America , after leaving Jamaica

This is a review of this book by a customer on Amazon UK :

“I thought this was a very good book. It is about a Jamaican who went to the USA, when he was 12 years old.

The books is about his experience of low-self esteem, and feelings of inferiority; from being in a country where the majority of people were Caucasians.

It tells about him joining the Nation of Islam , under the leadership of the Honourable Elijah Muhammad , 5 years after leaving Jamaica.

Then how he came to realise that what he was taught in the Nation of Islam ; was not true Islam.

My wife also though it was a good book. However she said that the author should not have gone into so much intimate details, about his sexual encounters.”

Paperback: