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Black No More by George S. Schuyler is a merciless, misanthropic satire that mocks everyone from white supremacists to revered black leaders like Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois. The speculative fiction has a total of thirteen chapters. In this section, we shall summarise chapters seven to thirteen of the Afrofuturistic novel.
Chapter 7 Summary of Black No More
Chapter 7 of Black No More opens with Matthew receiving a report that the overworked and underpaid hands at the Paradise cotton mill, who are also members of the Knights of Nordica, are planning a strike against the mill’s German owners, Blickdoff and Hortzenboff. Matthew senses a lucrative opportunity. He and his partner Bunny Brown fly to the town. Matthew meets with the owners and blackmails them by threatening to throw the full weight of the Knights of Nordica behind the striking workers unless the owners pay him $15,000. The terrified owners comply, and Bunny immediately flies the check back to Atlanta to ensure it clears.
With the money secured, Matthew turns his attention to sabotaging the workers. He holds a mass meeting where he distracts the desperate mill hands with a fiery speech about “white supremacy.” He specifically warns them that newly whitened Negroes make poor union material and might be hiding in their ranks. After the meeting, Matthew deploys his secret operatives to spread rumours among the workers that Swanson, the strike’s leader, and his fellow organisers are actually passing Negroes. Because the men cannot definitively prove their pure white ancestry, the workers turn on them, and the leaders are forced to flee the town.
When outside labour organisers arrive from New York to try and salvage the strike, the now fiercely paranoid mill workers drive them away as well. One organiser is run out of town simply for being from Harlem (which the locals assume makes him a “white nigger”), while a radical organiser is rejected for being a Jewish communist.
The strike is broken without the owners ever having to improve wages or hours. The owners, advised by a government conciliator, build recreational facilities that the workers have no time to use, and promise vacations to ten-year employees, of which there are none. A local preacher, secretly on the company payroll, delivers a sermon urging the workers to be patient. He warns them against “Russia,” and praises the owners’ “Christian tolerance.”
The chapter concludes with the workers so entirely consumed by rumours and suspicions about their neighbours’ racial purity that they completely forget their economic grievances. Matthew later gloats to the mill owners that using race to break strikes and distract workers has become his “trade”.
Chapter 8 Summary
In chapter 8 of Black No More, two years have passed and the Black-No-More corporation has successfully turned almost the entire American Negro population into Caucasians. This massive demographic shift wreaks economic havoc on the South, which is forced to abandon its dual Jim Crow infrastructure, rebuild former Black Belts, and pay standard wages to white teachers. These changes significantly increase taxes. The Southern political oligarchy also faces a crisis, as the absence of a visible black underclass causes the poor white masses to consider joining the Republican or Socialist parties to demand better labour conditions.
To combat this political shift, Democratic Senator Rufus Kretin meets with Rev. Givens, Matthew Fisher, and Bunny Brown to devise a strategy. Matthew knows that the poor white masses are trained to react to racial prejudice. He decides to revive the “old sure fire Negro problem” as a political scare tactic to unite the voters, even though the actual Negro population has vanished.
Meanwhile, Matthew is facing a severe personal crisis. His wife, Helen, is pregnant. He knows their child will inevitably be born black, which would expose his true identity. He cannot safely send Helen to a Black-No-More lying-in hospital because she shares her father’s rabid racism and insists on having the baby at the Givens family homestead.
To save his friend from ruin, Bunny orchestrates a ruthless and drastic solution. He visits a local café and tracks down two former prominent Negro leaders, Dr. Joseph Bonds and Santop Licorice, who are both now white but impoverished and working as a waiter and a dishwasher. Bunny pays the two men to burn down Rev. Givens’s mansion so that Helen will be forced to leave home for her confinement.
The mansion is completely destroyed by the fire. The shock and trauma of the event cause Helen to suffer a miscarriage. The chapter concludes with Bonds and Licorice, clean-shaven and wealthy from the arson payout, riding a train to New York.
Chapter 9 Summary of Black No More
Chapter 9 of Black No More begins with Matthew and Bunny Brown orchestrating a nationwide radio address for Rev. Givens. In the broadcast, Givens delivers a rambling, nonsensical speech on “The Menace of Negro Blood.” He urges the public to demand that the Republican administration close down Dr. Crookman’s Black-No-More sanitariums. The resulting public uproar forces President Harold Goosie and Congress to appoint an investigative commission. However, after a cross-country tour, the commission produces a massive, largely unread 1,789-page report that essentially takes no action, since the sanitariums are operating entirely within the law.
With Givens’s popularity soaring, Matthew reveals his master plan, which is forging an alliance with the Anglo-Saxon Association of America. This organisation, which is based in Richmond, Virginia, is led by an elitist named Arthur Snobbcraft. It believes in pure Anglo-Saxon supremacy and is obsessed with passing a national genealogical law to disfranchise anyone with Negro ancestry. Snobbcraft’s group possesses immense wealth but lacks popular support, whereas the Knights of Nordica have millions of working-class voters but need campaign funds. Matthew and Givens travel to Richmond and successfully negotiate a merger between the two groups, confident that their combined resources will easily defeat the Republicans in the next Presidential election.
To ensure this victory, Snobbcraft and a prominent statistician, Dr. Samuel Buggerie, have been secretly funding a massive genealogical investigation of the United States. Dr. Buggerie reports to the Association that their research proves millions of Americans actually possess non-Nordic or unknown ancestry. The chapter concludes with Buggerie planning to weaponise this data by releasing it in a simplified form just days before the election. He fully believes that the ensuing racial panic will cause a massive stampede of voters to their political ticket.
Chapter 10 Summary of Black No More
Chapter 10 of Black No More opens with Dr. Crookman, Hank Johnson, and Chuck Foster meeting with Gorman Gay, the Republican National Chairman. Foster reveals that their business of turning Negroes white is nearly finished, and they are preparing to close all but five of their sanitariums. However, they must keep their lying-in hospitals open to handle the inevitable births of black babies to newly whitened mothers. Gay warns them that the upcoming campaign will be fiercely contested and that using the government to protect these hospitals from rioting mobs will cost the Republican party millions of votes. In exchange for this federal protection, Gay extorts a five-million-dollar campaign contribution from the Black-No-More leaders.
Meanwhile, the Democrats hold their national convention in Jackson, Mississippi, highly confident of victory due to the Knights of Nordica’s successful fear-mongering. However, the convention deadlocks for twenty ballots as factions argue over whether to nominate Arthur Snobbcraft, Rev. Givens, or other candidates. During a heated backroom meeting, Matthew Fisher forces the committee’s hand by threatening to pull the Knights of Nordica’s massive voter support unless his father-in-law gets the ticket. Consequently, the Democrats nominate Rev. Givens for President and Snobbcraft for Vice-President. The Republicans counter by smoothly re-nominating the incumbents, President Harold Goosie and Vice-President Gump.
As the campaigns get underway, Dr. Samuel Buggerie reports to the Anglo-Saxon Association that his nationwide genealogical research is succeeding in proving that millions of Americans have non-Nordic ancestry. The Association decides to prepare a simplified summary of this data to release just days before the election to incite a racial panic and cause a voter stampede toward the Democrats.
The campaign grows hostile, dividing the nation. Anti-Black-No-More rhetoric culminates in a horrific mob attack on a Cincinnati lying-in hospital, where babies are burned to death and several prominent society women are exposed as having mulatto children. This tragedy shocks the nation and causes Republican support to plummet.
Desperate to save the Republican party, operatives Walter Williams and Joseph Bonds, both former Negroes passing as white, realise they need to find damaging information on the Democrats to turn the tide. Williams remembers that Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard, another whitened former Negro leader, is currently in Richmond doing research for Dr. Buggerie’s project. Williams travels to Richmond and meets with Beard, who readily betrays his employers and reveals that the Anglo-Saxon Association is guarding a vault full of explosive genealogical data and is preparing an easily digestible summary to release before the election. Williams recognises the immense value of this summary. He scouts the guarded building and returns to Washington to inform the Republican chairman. This sets the stage for a desperate counter-plot.
Chapter 11 Summary
Matthew is in a panic because his wife, Helen, miscalculated her pregnancy and is about to give birth three weeks early. Again, he fears his true identity is about to be exposed. He contemplates fleeing the country, though he is torn because he truly loves Helen and still harbors grand political ambitions, such as becoming Secretary of State or Ambassador to England under his father-in-law’s impending presidency. Bunny advises him to prepare his airplane and a stash of cash, wait to see how Helen reacts to the baby, and offer her the chance to flee with him before he escapes alone.
Meanwhile, the Democratic party, led by Rev. Givens and Arthur Snobbcraft, is overwhelmingly confident of winning the presidency by having capitalised on racial paranoia and the promise of white supremacy. The Republicans, conversely, are desperate and gloomy.
However, during a pre-election party in Richmond, Snobbcraft is pulled aside by a panicked Dr. Buggerie. Buggerie reveals that their secret, nationwide genealogical investigation has yielded disastrous results. The data proves that a vast portion of America’s “pure” Anglo-Saxon aristocracy actually possesses black ancestry dating back to the colonial era. This includes Snobbcraft, Rev. Givens, Senator Kretin, and Buggerie himself. Furthermore, Buggerie points out that they can find no genealogical record at all for Matthew Fisher. He suspects that Fisher is actually a whitened Negro.
Snobbcraft and Buggerie realise this data would destroy their social standing and their political campaign. They race to the Anglo-Saxon Association headquarters to burn the records. They arrive to find their six armed guards bound, gagged, and unconscious. When they check the basement vault, they find it completely empty. The mountain of index cards has been stolen.
Buggerie briefly believes they are still safe because the thieves will not have time to decipher the raw data before the election, and he possesses the only easily digestible summary. However, he suddenly realises he absentmindedly left that summary on a table in Snobbcraft’s study. The two men race back to the mansion only to find the summary missing, replaced by a mocking thank-you note from the Republican party (G.O.P.).
Chapter 12 Summary of Black No More
The narrative reaches its climax on the eve of the presidential election as Matthew Fisher’s wife, Helen, goes into labour. Matthew and Bunny wait in agonising suspense, knowing that if the child is born black, Matthew’s true identity will be exposed. Bunny has prepared for the worst. He has an airplane fuelled and waiting, along with a steel box full of thousand-dollar bills for a quick escape to Mexico.
When the baby boy is born, a grave doctor pulls Matthew aside to inform him that the child is “very, very dark.” The doctor casually offers to secretly kill the infant to save the family from disgrace. As Matthew agonises over whether to abandon his family or his political ambitions, a butler bursts in with a newspaper bearing a shocking headline: the Democratic leaders, including Rev. Givens, Snobbcraft, Buggerie, and Kretin, have all been exposed as having Negro ancestry. Because Matthew changed his name from Max Disher, his background cannot be traced and he is not mentioned in the exposé. This takes a massive weight off his shoulders.
Rev. Givens rushes in, terrified and fleeing from an angry mob of ten thousand Knights of Nordica members who have surrounded his office. Upon seeing the headline, Helen faints. When she awakens, she assumes the baby’s dark skin is entirely due to her newly discovered black ancestry. She tearfully begs Matthew for forgiveness for bringing disgrace upon him. Matthew is so touched by her devotion that he confesses the truth. He tells her that he is a whitened Negro and he is the one responsible for the baby’s colour. Helen is overwhelmingly relieved. She realises her love for her husband and child completely transcends all racial prejudices and societal rules.
With the mob closing in, the entire family along with Bunny, the doctor, and the nurse flees Atlanta in Matthew’s airplane. They cross the border and land safely in Mexico. There, Bunny receives a telegram from his fiercely loyal black girlfriend, Madeline, informing them that the Republicans overwhelmingly won the election, martial law has been declared, Snobbcraft and Buggerie are on the run, and Senator Kretin has been lynched. The chapter ends with the group safely out of danger, with Rev. Givens gratefully acknowledging that Mexico is much “healthier” for them than Georgia.
Chapter 13 Summary of Black No More
Arthur Snobbcraft and Dr. Buggerie narrowly escape a furious mob in Richmond by boarding a private airplane, piloted by Snobbcraft’s man, Frazier. As they fly south through the night, their plane begins to run out of gas over Mississippi. They fear they will be recognised from newspaper photographs and lynched by the locals. Buggerie suggests they disguise using a tin of black shoe polish to darken their skin and pass as Negroes. After daubing themselves in blacking, the plane crash-lands in a ditch near a settlement called Happy Hill.
Unfortunately, Happy Hill is a fiercely racist and religiously fanatical community led by Rev. Alex McPhule, who has recently been praying to God to send his congregation a “Sign”, specifically a Negro to lynch. When the blackened Snobbcraft and Buggerie approach the town, the congregation spots them, chases them down, and joyfully prepares to execute them.
At the lynching post, Snobbcraft and Buggerie plead for their lives and manage to wash off the shoe polish, proving they are white men. The disappointed crowd is about to let them go when a villager arrives with a newspaper displaying photos of the fleeing Democratic candidates and exposing their Negro ancestry. Rev. McPhule recognises Snobbcraft from the photo, and the mob, realises they have “white Negroes,” violently strips, mutilates, and burns the two men at the stake. Ironically, some whitened Negroes in the crowd enthusiastically participate in the burning to prove their own “pure white” American identity.
The novel then skips forward to an epilogue detailing a final, absurd twist in American society. Surgeon-General Dr. Junius Crookman publishes a report revealing that the newly whitened Negroes are actually two to three shades lighter than “old” Caucasians. This revelation causes a massive shift in racial aesthetics. Extreme whiteness becomes associated with Negro ancestry and social stigma, while dark skin becomes the highly sought-after mark of the true, pure-blooded Caucasian aristocracy.
To cater to this new craze, former Harlem hair-straightener Mme. Sisseretta Blandish (now passing as a white woman named Mrs. Sari Blandine) invents a successful skin-darkening stain. Soon, the entire nation is obsessed with getting dark again. The novel concludes with Dr. Crookman smiling wearily over a newspaper photograph of the high-society crowd at Cannes. The photo features Matthew, Helen, Bunny, his proudly black wife, and the Givenses all safely, happily, and fashionably sporting dark, heavily tanned skin.
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