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"The Double Life of Walter F. White and America's Darkest Secret" (Encore)

Aired on Thursday, May 12th.
Aired on Thursday, May 12th.

"Race is the central question of American history, and Walter White is the riddle within.... [White led] dangerous investigations for the NAACP throughout the Jim Crow South [and] changed the way Americans viewed the awful practice of lynching.... 'White Lies' finally gives this American hero his due." -- Jeffrey A. Engel, Director of the Center for Presidential History

(Note: This discussion first aired earlier this year.) Our guest is A.J. Baime, the bestselling author of "The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months that Changed the World" and "The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War," among other books. Baime joins us to talk about his newest book, which is a biography of Walter F. White, the lesser-known Black civil rights leader. "White Lies" profiles a man who, over the course of his remarkable and influential life, passed for white in order to investigate racist murders, help put the NAACP on the map, and worked tirelessly as a writer, journalist, and activist in order to plant the seeds for America's civil rights movement. As was noted of this book in a starred review in Publishers Weekly: "A captivating portrait of civil rights activist and novelist Walter White (1893–1955) and the fight to end anti-Black violence and racial discrimination in the US.... Filled with vibrant period details and lucid explanations of legal and political matters, this is a riveting portrait of a complex and courageous crusader for racial equality."

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