Walter White and Passing |
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
Volume 2, Issue 1 (2005)
pages 17-27
DOI: 10.1017/S1742058X05050034
Kenneth R. Janken, Professor, African and Afro-American Studies
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Walter White, the blond, blue-eyed Atlantan, was a voluntary Negro, that is, an African American who appears to be White but chooses to live in the Black world and identify with its experiences. He joined the NAACP national leadership in 1918 as assistant secretary and became secretary in 1931, serving at this post until his death in 1955. His tenure was marked by an effective public antilynching campaign and organizational stability and growth during the Depression years and by controversy over his leadership style. For him, posing as a Caucasian—and then telling all who would listen about his escapades—had three interrelated purposes. First, he developed inside information about mob psychology and mob violence, publicity of which was critical to the NAACP’s campaign against lynching. Second, White hoped to show Whites in particular the fallacy of racial stereotyping and racial categorization. Third, by emphasizing the dangers he courted—and even embellishing on them—he enhanced his racial bona fides at key times when his Black critics called into question his leadership.
Tags: Du Bois Review, Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, Kenneth Janken, Kenneth R. Janken, Walter Francis White, Walter White