He Risked His Life Infiltrating Lynch Mobs | Full Documentary | American Experience | PBS

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 (NAACP). 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. Official Website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexpe... | #ForgottenHeroPBS © 2025 WGBH Educational Foundation 0:00 Introduction: Walter White, the Forgotten Leader of the NAACP 4:57 Atlanta 1906: A 13-Year-Old Survives a Deadly Race Riot 9:40 Growing Up "Black in a White Body": Walter White's Early Life 12:54 The Springfield Riot and the Founding of the NAACP 17:03 Passing for White at Atlanta University 20:01 Saving the Seventh Grade and Starting Atlanta's NAACP Chapter 22:40 Moving to Harlem to Join the NAACP 23:52 Going Undercover to Investigate a Lynching 25:31 Ida B. Wells and the Anti-Lynching Movement 31:13 The Harlem Renaissance and Walter White's Double Life 41:04 The Elaine, Arkansas Massacre of 1919 47:42 Winning at the Supreme Court: Moore v. Dempsey 49:19 Leading the NAACP as the Great Depression Hits 51:14 The Scottsboro Boys and the NAACP's Costly Mistake 55:57 His Father's Death in a Jim Crow Hospital 1:02:32 Tea with FDR and the Fight for an Anti-Lynching Law 1:03:52 The Rise of the Black Vote 1:06:14 The Feud with W.E.B. Du Bois Over Segregation 1:11:10 Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Legal War on Jim Crow 1:17:03 Fighting Hollywood: Gone With the Wind and Hattie McDaniel 1:22:26 Black Soldiers in a Segregated Army in World War II 1:28:03 Postwar Violence and Truman Takes Up Civil Rights 1:30:50 The 1948 Election and Desegregating the Military 1:35:53 The Red Scare and Cold War Pressure on the NAACP 1:39:40 Walter White's Scandalous Second Marriage 1:43:43 Thurgood Marshall Rises as White Is Pushed Out 1:47:30 Brown v. Board of Education 1:48:34 The Death and Forgotten Legacy of Walter White #NAACP #BlackHistoryMonth #History #Documentary This program is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station: https://www.pbs.org/donate Subscribe to the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE channel for more videos:    / @americanexperiencepbs   Enjoy full episodes of your favorite AMERICAN EXPERIENCE shows anytime, anywhere with the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/2QbtzhR FOLLOW AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Facebook:   / americanexperiencepbs   Instagram:   / americanexperiencepbs   Threads: https://www.threads.net/@americanexpe...