Walling, William English (1877–1936)

US labour reformer and socialist. He cofounded the National Women's Trade Union League (1903). He then spent much of the years 1905–08 in Russia where he got to know leading revolutionary figures; on his return he published Russia's Message (1908). After witnessing a race riot in 1908, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and joined the Socialist Party (1910–17), but resigned because of its antiwar stance. He worked full-time for the American Federation of Labor, wrote for the American Federationist.

Walling was born in Louisville, Kentucky. A man of independent means, educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School, he rejected his privileged, liberal heritage and deliberately chose to become a factory inspector in Illinois (1900–01). He then moved to New York City and lived in the tenement district (1901–05). He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Connecticut in 1924, and was executive director of the Labor Chest (from 1935). Although he moved back and forth on the left-wing spectrum, he mainly supported reform as opposed to revolution.