Investigator for Democracy

Destination Freedom. The Station WMAQ presents Destination Freedom, dramatization to the great democratic traditions of the American Negro people, a part of the pageant of history, and of our own destination, freedom. Today we tell the story of Walter White, the Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in a chapter entitled,

investigator for democracy. Of all the things a man may know, of men and books, of science and society, the greatest is to know of himself, of who he is and where he's going, and on what side of the road he stands.

My name is Walter White. My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blonde. I am a Negro. And I learned very early my identity in the riot-torn year of 1906. My lesson began in Atlanta, Georgia.

I was driving home with the town's mail carrier, my father. I was in a hurry to get home. Water. Water. Yes, father? We're driving too fast, son. I told you the hulums will think we are afraid and start throwing at us.

Slow down. Yes, Father. You see them on the corners there, itching for trouble. We don't want your mother to worry. Father, is there really going to be a riot? You read the papers. You see the headlines, egging on the hulums.

Pulling them the negroes, the calls of all their troubles. Drive careful, son. Keep your eyes open. I drove carefully. I opened my eyes just wide enough to see fear creeping over the town I was born in.

The riot my father spoke of hung over it like a cloud. But for me it was still only talk. Until one evening running hardly downstairs I stopped father as he was leaving the house. Dad?