Mixed Race Studies

A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White

University of Georgia Press
1994 (First published in 1948)
392 pages
5.5 x 8.5
Paper ISBN: 978-0-8203-1698-7

Walter White (1893-1955)

Foreword by Andrew Young

The life story of a man who crossed the color line to fight for civil rights

First published in 1948, A Man Called White is the autobiography of the famous civil rights activist Walter White during his first thirty years of service to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. White joined the NAACP in 1918 and served as its executive secretary from 1931 until his death in 1955. His recollections tell not only of his personal life, but amount to an insider’s history of the association’s first decades.

Although an African American, White was fair-skinned, blond-haired, and blue-eyed. His ability to pass as a white man allowed him—at great personal risk—to gather important information regarding lynchings, disfranchisement, and discrimination. Much of A Man Called White recounts his infiltration of the country’s white-racist power structure and the numerous legal battles fought by the NAACP that were aided by his daring efforts.

Penetrating and detailed, this autobiography provides an important account of crucial events in the development of race relations before 1950—from the trial of the “Scottsboro Boys” to an investigation of the treatment of African American servicemen in World War II, from the struggle against the all-white primaries in the South to court decisions–at all levels—on equal education.

Flight: A Novel

Louisiana State University Press
April 1998 (Originally published in 1926)
304 pages
5.50 x 8.50 inches
Paperback ISBN: 9780807122808

Walter White (1893-1955)

Published amid controversy in 1926, Flight focuses on the dilemma of Mimi Daquin, a light-complexioned African American woman who passes, for a time, as white. In the New Orleans of her birth, Mimi never encountered the hierarchies of skin color that existed elsewhere. But when her family moves to Atlanta, she embarks on a lifelong lesson about what it really means to belong to a people. From the Atlanta riot of 1906 to her shameful expulsion from black bourgeois society because of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, to her working-class status in Philadelphia and Harlem, Mimi eventually decides to escape her miseries by passing for white in New York City. There, her success exceeds her expectations but even so cannot quell a recurrent yearning.

Walter White (1893–1955), a blond-haired, blue-eyed African American, was a native of Atlanta and an adopted New Yorker. His other works are the novel Fire in the Flint and an autobiography, A Man Called White. He was a major figure in the NAACP for more than three decades.

Motivation to Control Prejudice Predicts Categorization of Multiracials

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Volume 40, Number 5 (May 2014)
pages 590-603
DOI: 10.1177/0146167213520457

Jacqueline M. Chen, Post-doctoral Scholar
University of California, Davis

Wesley G. Moons, Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of California, Davis

Sarah E. Gaither
Department of Psychology
Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts

David L. Hamilton, Research Professor of Social Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara

Jeffrey W. Sherman, Professor of Psychology
University of California, Davis

Multiracial individuals often do not easily fit into existing racial categories. Perceivers may adopt a novel racial category to categorize multiracial targets, but their willingness to do so may depend on their motivations. We investigated whether perceivers’ levels of internal motivation to control prejudice (IMS) and external motivation to control prejudice (EMS) predicted their likelihood of categorizing Black–White multiracial faces as Multiracial. Across four studies, IMS positively predicted perceivers’ categorizations of multiracial faces as Multiracial. The association between IMS and Multiracial categorizations was strongest when faces were most racially ambiguous. Explicit prejudice, implicit prejudice, and interracial contact were ruled out as explanations for the relationship between IMS and Multiracial categorizations. EMS may be negatively associated with the use of the Multiracial category. Therefore, perceivers’ motivations to control prejudice have important implications for racial categorization processes.

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The Trouble with Transcendence: Is Defying the Gender Binary the New Racial Passing?

Nursing Clio: Because the Personal is Historical
2014-01-21

Mallory Nicole Davis
University of Oregon

In 2010, Thomas Araguz III, a Texas firefighter died on the job, leaving behind his two children and transgender wife, Nikki.[1] The couple was legally married because although the state of Texas only recognizes heterosexual marriages, the state will validate a transgender union if the trans partner’s identification documents dictate that s/he is the opposite legal sex of the spouse.[2] However, when Nikki sought survivor benefits after her husband’s unexpected death, Thomas’ family launched a case against Nikki, stating that Thomas did not know his wife was transgender. The suit argued that Nikki wrongfully deceived her husband, while lobbying for the nullification of their marriage and subsequently, Nikki’s request for spousal benefits. The case was complicated further by the prosecuting attorney’s interrogation of a deposition taken from Thomas in a separate court case—a battle over custody of his two sons with his ex-wife—in which he stated that he did not know that Nikki was transgender.[3] In response to the scrutinizing of her late husband’s statement, Nikki insisted that Thomas lied during his deposition and pretended to be unaware of her transgender status in order maintain custody of his two small children. Nikki stated, “At the time, Thomas and I thought it was in the best interest of our children to lie. They were the center of (our) lives”.[4] Whether Nikki neglected to disclose her trans identity to her husband or that the couple collectively decided to lie to the court during their custody case for the sake of their children, deception surrounding Nikki’s trans status is at the center of this legal case; and undoubtedly, her credibility will be diminished regardless of how the court decides…

…Passing is a term typically used to denote a person’s ability to move imperceptibly across racial lines, though the word is equally fitting to describe a trans* person’s ability to transgress the gender binary. Nikki’s perceived deceptions echoes the case of Alice and Leonard Rhinelander, an interracial couple who were married in 1924 who made national headlines because Alice, a light-skinned African-American woman, passed for white and married into the affluent Rhinelander family.[5] When negative press threatened to tarnish the Rhinelander family name, Leonard disappeared without warning and filed for an annulment, claiming that Alice misled him by presenting herself as a white woman. Ultimately, it was proved that Leonard had, in fact, known that Alice was African-American, and Alice counter-sued Leonard for abandonment. Although the Rhinelander family ended up offering Alice a monetary settlement upon her agreement to a divorce, the character attacks launched on Alice and her family, based upon her alleged racial deception were devastating. And like Nikki, Alice’s identity came under fire in a torrential court case only after the transcendent nature of her identity proved threatening to the family of her husband…

Read the entire article here.