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Collection Data
- Description
- The Walter White Papers consists of writings, letters, contracts, printed matter, reports and financial records. The bulk of the collection consists of White's writings, including two published articles "Negro Segregation Comes North" (1925) and the "Negro and the Supreme Court" (1931), and two manuscripts entitled "Crossing the Color Line" and "Over the Color Line," which focus on "passing." There is also an unpublished manuscript, research material, notes and character sketches for "Blackjack" a work of fiction that deals with African Americans in the sport of boxing; and a description of the tableaux scenes for "Batoula", possibly based on the novel by René Maran, which was cast in Dahomey. There are also poems written by White's friend, Grace Mott Johnson (1928-1929).
- Names
- White, Walter, 1893-1955 (Creator)
- Mott, Grace Johnson
- National Interracial Conference (Creator)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1921 - 1938
- Library locations
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
- Shelf locator: Sc MG 479
- Topics
- African American civic leaders
- African American intellectuals
- African American novelists
- African Americans -- Social conditions
- Black author
- Boxing -- United States
- Genres
- Correspondence
- Documents
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Walter White was one of the most important civil rights leaders of the twentieth century. From 1931 to 1955 he served as the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). White established the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, and came to the attention of James Weldon Johnson, the executive secretary of the national NAACP, who hired him in 1918 as the assistant executive secretary.
In his thirty-seven year career with the NAACP, White played a leadership role in the national effort to achieve political, economic and social rights for African Americans. He led the fight for anti-lynching legislation, as well as several legal campaigns to end white primaries, poll taxes and segregated housing and education. He was the author of nine books, including two novels, Fire in the Flint (1924) and Flight (1926), and Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch (1929), which was an study of lynching, and an autobiography A Man called White, which was published in 1948.
- Content: The Walter White Papers consists of writings, letters, contracts, printed matter, reports and financial records. The bulk of the collection consists of White's writings, including two published articles "Negro Segregation Comes North" (1925) and the "Negro and the Supreme Court" (1931), and two manuscripts entitled "Crossing the Color Line" and "Over the Color Line," which focus on "passing." There is also an unpublished manuscript, research material, notes and character sketches for "Blackjack" a work of fiction that deals with African Americans in the sport of boxing; and a description of the tableaux scenes for "Batoula", possibly based on the novel by René Maran, which was cast in Dahomey. There are also poems written by White's friend, Grace Mott Johnson (1928-1929).
Printed material consists of items produced by the NAACP and abstracts of reports prepared by the research committee of the National Interracial Conference concerning health, education, industry and agriculture, among other topics.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 1 box 0.42 linear feet
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Identifiers
- Other local Identifier: Sc MG 479
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b15802344
- MSS Unit ID: 21195
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 037f9280-e673-013d-ea0f-0242ac110002
