Book Review

Canada and the United States

Current historical monographs are reconstructing the activism for social justice reform of the 1930s and 1940s. While earlier chronicles have detailed events mainly following World War II and the 1950s, newer narratives, like that of Lulu B. White, give us a vital connection to this ageless struggle while introducing fresh voices. What becomes so clear in the lives of White, Septima Clark, Modjeska Simkins, Juanita Jenkins, Clara Luper, Daisy Lampkins, and Ruby Hurley is that the founding years of the southern chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) saw women campaigning, crusading, fundraising, and serving as executive secretary, field workers, state conference directors, and regional directors. Their primary leadership was valued by the local and national cadres. They carved the strategies and tactics to war against unequal teacher salaries and black schools, southern mob rule, and disrespect toward black women in public institutions, whether newspapers or department stores. They created alliances with black male activists who were in the struggle, assuming positions of partnership, unafraid to stand toe-to-toe with all adversaries who threatened their quest for freedom and justice.	1
White, a native of Elmo, Texas, was born in 1900 to an aggressive and confrontational father and a nurturing, domestic, deferring mother. Henry and Easter Madison owned a substantial land base in East Texas that allowed them to raise twelve children with economic independence and racial consciousness. Lulu finished the public schools of Elmo and ultimately graduated from Prairie View College in secondary education. Along the way, her abilities as a debater/advocate emerged; her college mentors would direct these efforts into future race work. After graduation, Lulu taught in a small town north of Houston, leaving to pursue her dream of public service. She married one of Houston's top black benefactors, Julius White, a grassroots educated entrepreneur who moved with ease among Houston's black elite and who financed most of the local NAACP's challenges to segregation and discrimination. Lulu and Julius complemented each other's passion for immediate and full citizenship. Their style and forcefulness often upset factions of the city's old guard.	2
In exploring White's public life, two areas are most prominent: her life-long work with the NAACP, moving from fundraising to holding significant leadership in the state conference; and her support of the labor movement in Houston, a demand for black economic parity and the full integration of labor unions. Her affiliation with the local NAACP began with fundraising/membership drives. But the Houston chapter moved into more direct nonviolent protest than was traditional of the NAACP. The city had a significant black middle class—merchants, lawyers, teachers, ministers, business persons, journalists—who organized a Black Chamber of Commerce. Black businesses provided many public accommodations; hence, the ballot, economic options, the abolition of segregated public schools, and the end of mob rule were central organizing issues. Julius White gave his wife membership into the elite circles and a forum for her race work. Her attacks began with the challenge to end poll taxes; the Democratic white primary; unequal pay for equally qualified teachers and administrators; the unequal facilities, school terms, and dual sessions of black public schools; and the segregated business practices of white merchants. The Houston branch recruited Lulu as a field worker and then as executive secretary. Rallies, boycotts, and demonstrations awakened the merchants to White's determination to end discriminatory practices.	. . .