He wants to write commentary and arts criticism to find out just where his talent might lead. Besides, he’s an ambitious young journalist, chafing under the knowledge that while the “Incognegro” byline is famous, almost nobody knows the work of Zane Pinchback. Pinchback, aware of his good fortune at eluding discovery or worse, returns to Harlem determined to give up the undercover work. The work is dangerous - at the opening of the novel, he barely escapes with his life when a lynch mob figures out he’s a spy of some kind and pegs him for a - shall we say, “negro”? “Incognegro” is the pseudonym of Zane Pinchback, a Southern-born, Harlem-based reporter who, like White, takes advantage of his appearance - attending lynchings, taking names and addresses under the guise of selling personalized postcards of the event, and writing exposes of the hatred and violence visited upon blacks in the `30s. White is the inspiration behind Incognegro, the graphic novel by literary prose writer Mat Johnson and British artist Warren Pleece. He used his white looks to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and wrote many on-the-scene articles exposing the horrors of lynching. This is Walter Francis White who, despite his appearance, was a black man. Suspenseful, unsettling and relevant, Incognegro is a tense graphic novel of shifting identities, forbidden passions, and secrets that run far deeper than skin color.If you look at photos of NAACP leadership from the 1930s, you’ll find a wiry, professorial-looking man with blond hair and fair skin at the center of many. With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay 'incognegro' long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother - and himself. Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, is sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi.

They called this dangerous assignment going 'incognegro.' They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could 'pass' among the white folks. In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. This tenth anniversary edition of the acclaimed and fearless graphic novel features enhanced toned art, an afterword by Mat Johnson, character sketches, and other additional material.

Incognegro book