Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP Backdrop Blur
Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP Poster
United States
10.0 1h 53m

Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP

"The Most Famous Activist You've Never Heard Of"

While many consider the birth of the civil rights movement to be 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus, the stage had been set decades before by activists of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some of the NAACP leaders are familiar, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Thurgood Marshall, but Walter White, head of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955, has been all but forgotten. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Walter White looked white; he described himself as “an enigma, a Black man occupying a white body.” Like virtually all light-skinned African Americans of his day, White was descended from enslaved Black women and powerful white men. But he was Black — by law, identity, and conviction and spent his entire life fighting for Black civil rights. Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP traces the life of this neglected civil rights hero and seeks to explain his disappearance from our history.

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Top Cast

  • Joe Morton

    Joe Morton

    Narrator

  • Geoffrey Owens

    Geoffrey Owens

    Walter White (voice)

  • Kenneth Mack

    Kenneth Mack

    Self

  • Karlos Hill

    Karlos Hill

    Self

  • Patricia Sullivan

    Patricia Sullivan

    Self

  • Josef M. Anderson

    Josef M. Anderson

    Self

  • Kidada Williams

    Kidada Williams

    Self

  • Ellis Monk

    Ellis Monk

    Self

  • Adriane Lentz-Smith

    Adriane Lentz-Smith

    Self

Overview

While many consider the birth of the civil rights movement to be 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus, the stage had been set decades before by activists of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some of the NAACP leaders are familiar, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Thurgood Marshall, but Walter White, head of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955, has been all but forgotten. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Walter White looked white; he described himself as “an enigma, a Black man occupying a white body.” Like virtually all light-skinned African Americans of his day, White was descended from enslaved Black women and powerful white men. But he was Black — by law, identity, and conviction and spent his entire life fighting for Black civil rights. Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP traces the life of this neglected civil rights hero and seeks to explain his disappearance from our history.

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Trailers & Clips

Trailer | FORGOTTEN HERO: WALTER WHITE AND THE NAACP | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | PBS

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