Article Title
Abstract
In his article, Walter White and the American Negro Soldier in World War II,Thomas Hachey concluded that there was "no real way to determine the measure of influence, if any, that Walter White had upon the plight of colored peoples in other lands during the Second World War." While I would agree with this statement, black American soldiers were not the only "colored people" involved in WWII: as White himself wrote,"WWII has given the Negro a sense of kinship with other colored peoples of the world; he senses that the struggle of the Negro in the U.S. is part and parcel of the struggle against imperialism and exploitation in India, China, Burma, Africa, the Philippines Malaya, the West Indies and South America.Y Yet, when we examine White's correspondence with the British government regarding British racism and his visit to the U.K. in 1944, his sense of kinship with the plight of other blacks appears to be as nonexistent as was his inability or unwillingness to use the power and influence of the NAACP on their behalf. These episodes also demonstrate the duplicity, mendacity, and racism of the British as well as the ease with which they handled the NAACP's Secretary, who turned out to be a paper tiger, despite British apprehensions.
Recommended Citation
Sherwood, Marika
(1992)
"Walter White and the British: A Lost Oppurtunity,"
Contributions in Black Studies: Vol. 9, Article 16.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cibs/vol9/iss1/16