The Original Walter White

Few have heard of Walter Francis White, the civil-rights activist, key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, writer, and political horse trader. This is likely by design rather than circumstance.

Most people outside his inner circle, especially those who mattered the most in the civil-rights movement, didn’t like Walter White very much. He was annoyingly chatty, constantly on the go, prone to bragging about his exploits, miserly at his job as executive secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., and relatively selfish. Moreover, White had a knack for alienating some of his fellow crusaders, W. E. B. Du Bois among them.