American Experience Features Forgotten Civil Rights Hero Walter White
When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, she kicked off a movement that had been stirring for decades. Activists of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People braved the violence and oppression of the Jim Crow era in the first half of the twentieth century, with well-known figures like W.E.B. Du Bois and Thurgood Marshall. But the leader of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955, Walter White, has been lost to history.
Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP traces the life of this neglected civil rights hero and seeks to explain his disappearance from our history. The American Experience documentary premieres next Tuesday, February 25, at 9pm on CET/ThinkTV16 and the PBS App.
With his blonde hair and blue eyes, White described himself as “an enigma, a Black man occupying a white body.” Although his racial identity may have been underscored by law and society, White spent his entire adult life fighting for Black civil rights. White was arguably the most influential Black man in mid-century America and he played a prominent role in shaping the NAACP. The goals of the organization – full political, legal, and social equality for all African Americans – were almost unimaginable for most Americans at the time.
Once with the NAACP, White volunteered for dangerous assignments, collecting evidence to show the violence and oppression that was prevalent throughout the deep South. As a white passing man, he would travel posing as a salesman and gather details from locals about the horrifying acts in their town. From lynching incidents to discrimination in schools, White’s efforts were monumental in the fight for equality, including the legal assault on Jim Crow.
Still, White faced criticism throughout his career and spent his final days alienated from the movement. When he died of a heart attack in 1955, the civil rights era was just beginning to take off and a new story was being written by a new generation.
Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP shows that the story of the long struggle for civil rights is not complete without the life and work of Walter White. Featuring interviews with professors, authors and even some of White’s family members, the film tells his often overlooked story and great legal victories.
Watch a preview of the documentary: https://watch.cetconnect.org/video/trailer-forgotten-hero-walter-white-and-the-naacp/.
