White, Walter Francis (1893-1955), was an American civil rights leader. White served as secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1931 until his death. He fought to eliminate the lynching of Black Americans during the 1920’s and 1930’s. White’s book Rope and Faggot (1929) was a powerful attack on lynching. White received the Spingarn Medal in 1937 for promoting the rights of Black citizens.
White was born on July 1, 1893, in Atlanta. He described his struggles against racial prejudice in his autobiography, A Man Called White (1948). White also wrote two novels that dealt with race relations, Fire in the Flint (1924) and Flight (1926). He died on March 21, 1955.
