at Trinity College, now Duke University. He col-
laborated with Walter Clinton Jackson, a professor
at the North Carolina College for Women.
Bibliography
White, Newman Ivey, and Walter Clinton Jackson. An
Anthology of Verse by American Negroes, edited with a
critical introduction, biographical sketches of the au-
thors, and bibliographical notes by Newman Ivey White
and Walter Clinton Jackson, with an introduction by
James Hardy Dillard.1924, reprint, Durham, N.C.:
Moore Pub Co., 1968.
White, Walter Francis (1893–1955)
A central figure in the fight for civil rights, an anti-
lynching crusader, writer, and officer in the NA-
TIONALASSOCIATION FOR THEADVANCEMENT
OFCOLOREDPEOPLE(NAACP). Born on July 1,
1893, in Atlanta, he was the fourth child of seven
born to Madeline Harrison White and George
White. White’s parents were of mixed-race and
were extremely light-skinned. White, a blue-eyed,
blond Negro, would later use his appearance to in-
filtrate white society and to expose the violence
and truths of LYNCHING. White attended high
school at ATLANTAUNIVERSITY, which offered a
curriculum to students for whom the state pro-
vided no high school classes, and then entered the
college. He graduated in 1916. Following gradua-
tion, he became an insurance salesman with the
Standard Life Insurance Company of Harry Pace,
founder of PACE PHONOGRAPH COMPANY and
Black Swan Records.
In 1922 he married Leah Powell, a fellow
NAACP staff member. The couple, who had two
children, Jane and Walter Carl Darrow, lived at
409 Edgecombe Avenue, one of HARLEM’s most
desirable locations. White married Poppy Cannon,
a white woman, in 1949, following his divorce from
Powell.
White’s foray into public political life came
through his involvement with the NAACP. He was
one of the most outspoken members of the organi-
zation, which he joined as a member of the admin-
istration in 1918. White, who worked closely with
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, became one of the
NAACP’s primary investigators of lynching. His
reports enabled the organization to publish damn-
ing statistics about the prevalence and rationales of
lynch mobs and to craft antilynching legislation
proposals. In 1929 he published ROPE ANDFAG-
GOT,an extended study of lynching and race vio-
lence. He succeeded James Weldon Johnson, his
mentor and friend, as executive secretary of the
NAACP in 1930.
White combined his extensive political work
with his literary interests. In 1924 he published
FIRE IN THEFLINT,for which he completed the
draft in less than two weeks. Publisher JOHNFAR-
RARread the manuscript with great interest, but
his publishing firm, George Doran and Company,
rejected the book, in part because the author
would not soften his unflattering portraits of
whites. The novel, is a gripping and ruthless ac-
count of lynching and false accusations. His sec-
ond novel, FLIGHT,considers the pain and politics
of racial passing. White completed work on this562 White, Walter Francis
Walter White. Photographed by Carl Van Vechten,- Permission granted by the Van Vechten Trust
(Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library)