What they're saying ...
“Electrifying.”
Chicago Review of Books
“Sure, it’s the biography of one man. But it’s also a history of racism in America.”
New York Daily News
“A.J. Baime is a master storyteller and this is his finest work—a thrilling story and a stunning, smart, invaluable piece of American history that helps us better understand a forgotten hero and better understand the question of race in America. An extraordinary book.”
Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ali and King
A New Yorker best book of the year.
The chilling story of Walter F. White, a Black man who passed as white to investigate racial murders in the 1920s, and went on to lead the NAACP.
“Baime recounts [Walter White’s story] with the vividness it deserves.” —Washington Post
Walter F. White led two lives: one as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and the NAACP in the early twentieth century; the other as a white newspaperman who covered lynching crimes in the Deep South at the blazing height of racial violence. Born mixed race and with very fair skin and straight hair, White was able to “pass” for white. He leveraged this ambiguity as a reporter, bringing to light the darkest crimes in America and helping to plant the seeds of the civil rights movement.
White’s risky career led him to lead a double life. He was simultaneously a second-class citizen subject to Jim Crow laws at home and a widely respected professional with full access to the white world at work. His life was fraught with internal and external conflict—much like the story of race in America. Starting out as an obscure activist, White ultimately became Black America’s most prominent leader, during his time. A character study of White’s life and career with all these complexities has never been rendered, until now.
By the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental President, Dewey Defeats Truman, and The Arsenal of Democracy, White Lies uncovers the life of a civil rights leader unlike any other.
