In the summer of 1941, a thirty-nine year old ex-convict from New York City, that just months earlier changed his name from Harry Goldhurst to Harry Golden, stepped off a bus at the main terminal in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. Although he initially had no intention of remaining in North Carolina, Golden would in time become one of the best known and some would say most controversial figures in the state. Within a few years of his arrival in Charlotte, the middle-aged son of Jewish immigrants established himself as a reliable bridge between white elites and African Americans. In the 1950s and 1960s, Golden utilized his talents as a writer, his unorthodox humor and his talents as a mediator to lessen racially volatile situations and correct conditions he considered unjust. His talent with a pen and his cavalier spirit attracted converts to his causes and in turn made him a national celebrity. So inspirational was his efforts in the fight for civil rights that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to him in his now famous 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," as a white brother of the South that grasped the meaning of the Civil Rights Movement and committed himself to it. Utilizing numerous archival collections, interviews with Golden’s associates and friends, articles from various newspapers and publications and government records, this thesis examines the background of Golden and his advocacies in his quest for tolerance and justice in the state of North Carolina.