The Investigation
The NAACP sent its assistant secretary, Walter F. White, to investigate the violence in October, 1919. White, who was blonde and blue-eyed and able to pass for white, was granted credentials from the Chicago Daily News, which enabled him to obtain an interview with Governor Brough, who in turn gave him a letter of recommendation and his autographed photograph.
White was only in Phillips County for a brief time before his identity was discovered; he took the first train back to Little Rock. The conductor told him that he was leaving "just when the fun is going to start", because they had found out that there was a "damned yellow nigger passing for white and the boys are going to get him". Asked what they would do to him, the conductor told White that "when they get through with him he won't pass for white no more!"
White published his findings in the Daily News, the Chicago Defender and The Nation, as well as the NAACP's own magazine The Crisis. Governor Brough asked the United States Postal Service to prohibit the mailing of the Chicago Defender and Crisis while others attempted to enjoin distribution of the Defender at the local level.
Read more about this topic: Moore V. Dempsey