This image is the cover for the book The Fire in the Flint, Classics To Go

The Fire in the Flint, Classics To Go

The Fire in the Flint is a 1924 novel by civil rights activist and writer Walter White, it was published by Knopf. The novel was written during the Harlem Renaissance and contains themes consistent with the New Negro Movement as well as promoting anti-racist themes and shedding light on racial oppression during the early 20th century. The novel tells the story of Dr. Kenneth Harper, an African American doctor and World War I veteran, who moves back to his hometown in Georgia to open a clinic and practice medicine after graduating from medical school. Dr. Harper, who is initially unwilling to be involved in racial tensions in the town, eventually fights against the Ku Klux Klan after he is subjected to hostile racism from the white residents.

Walter White

Walter Francis White (July 1, 1893 – March 21, 1955) was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, 1929–1955, after joining the organization as an investigator in 1918. He directed a broad program of legal challenges to racial segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist. He graduated in 1916 from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). In 1918, White joined the small national staff of the NAACP in New York at the invitation of James Weldon Johnson. He acted as Johnson's assistant national secretary and traveled to the South to investigate lynchings and riots. Being fair skinned, at times he passed as white to facilitate his investigations and protect himself in tense situations. White succeeded Johnson as the head of the NAACP, leading the organization from 1929 to 1955. He joined the Advisory Council for the Government of the Virgin Islands in 1934 and resigned in 1935 to protest President Roosevelt's silence at Southern Democrats' blocking of anti-lynching legislation to avoid retaliatory obstruction of his New Deal policies. White oversaw the plans and organizational structure of the fight against public segregation. He worked with President Truman on desegregating the armed forces after the Second World War and gave him a draft for the Executive Order to implement this. Under White's leadership, the NAACP set up its Legal Defense Fund, which conducted numerous legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement, and achieved many successes. Among these was the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which determined that segregated education was inherently unequal. White also quintupled NAACP membership to nearly 500,000.

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