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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black No More, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Oppression
Race, Class, and Power
Ignorance
Identity and Deception
Leadership and Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
After the procedure, Max feels weak, nauseous, and sore, having been fed revolting concoctions for three days. But when he sees himself in the mirror, he is amazed at his white complexion, hair, and features. Now he won’t experience discrimination or obstacles—he feels new life and strength. Six hours later, he leaves the facility; he recognizes many people in line waiting for the treatment, but none of them recognize him. He’s excited to now be indistinguishable from the majority of people in the United States.
Max’s newfound liveliness and strength demonstrates the freedom and assurance that he feels as a white man that he never could as a Black man. The book also emphasizes that race is a construct, as Max can just become white simply by changing his skin color—no other change is needed. Yet despite this idea, Americans still fixate on race and use it as a way to divide and oppress people.
Themes
Moments later, however, a mob of reporters address Max, asking him questions as the first person to go through the treatment. He refuses to answer the questions, thinking that they’ll have to pay to get his story. Just then, a cab drives up and Max leaps in—only to find that it’s already occupied by a pretty white girl. She tells him that she got a cab for him and that she’s a reporter from The Scimitar. She’ll pay him $1,000 to sell his story to her, and he agrees, astonished at the sum.
Immediately after receiving the treatment, Max understands how he can benefit from racism and Dr. Crookman’s treatment as well. He capitalizes on his transformation as leverage to get money from journalists, using his newfound power for his own profit. This continues a pattern throughout the book of people using racism to their own advantage.
Themes
The girl introduces herself as Sybil Smith, and Max asks if she would like to come to dinner with him that night. She responds flirtatiously that she won’t know until she’s had the experience. They then drive down to her office, and Max gives his story to a stenographer. When he leaves the building a few hours later, The Scimitar is already circulating the extra edition with a huge picture of him.
Max is already receiving some of the benefits of whiteness. Whereas the blonde girl refused to dance with him simply because he was Black, now he is easily able to go out with a white woman. He hasn’t changed inwardly at all, but because of people’s fixation on race, their perception of him has completely changed.
Themes
Seeing the story, Max is grateful that he gave his name as William Small, and he’s annoyed that his picture is now all over the papers. He underwent the treatment to escape the conspicuousness of having dark skin, and this publicity will keep him conspicuous. Sybil comforts him, telling him that there are so many people that look like him that no one will recognize him, and she takes his arm as they walk down Broadway together. Max is amazed at his newfound freedom and assuredness.
Here, Max introduces another key idea: that he plans to try to keep his identity a secret. He wants to deceive people because it allows him this greater freedom and assuredness. Blending into white society and creating a new persona for himself, rather than standing out as a Black man, allows him to begin this deception.
Themes
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Max and Sybil dine and dance together and then go to a cabaret, but Max notes that the white establishments are somewhat dull. It seems to him that the Black joints in Harlem have much more joy and abandon while also somehow being more refined—even the dancing at the cabaret is less elegant and graceful. He feels a momentary pang of disillusionment before looking at all the beautiful white women around him.
Here, the book explores the irony of Max’s transformation: he finds Black society more interesting than white society, even though he desperately wants to be a part of white society. The bias toward viewing white society as the ideal or the goal has been born out of racism and ignorance, particularly because Black people have always been excluded from white society and therefore have never been able to truly evaluate it.
Themes
Max and Sybil part at 3 a.m., and when he returns to Harlem, he stops at his friends’ regular hangout. But when he knocks, the person at the door is suspicious of him, telling him to go away and that the place is closed. Max asks if Bunny is in there, and the man agrees to get him. When Bunny comes to the door and hears Max’s voice, he’s shocked to see a white man, and he instructs the doorman to open up for Max.
The book suggests here that segregation hurts all people. Just as Max can’t participate in aspects of white society as a Black person, he is now barred from participating in the more enjoyable Black society that he’s familiar with. Again, though race is a construct, it is a construct that is ingrained in society’s institutions.
Themes
Pretty soon, everyone in the place is looking at Max, astonished at his transformation. Max tells Bunny that he’s going to head down to Atlanta, and as they walk home together, they realize that they’re soon going to be parted—not by an ocean, but by “the great sea of color.” Max tells Bunny he could get white, too—he offers to pay for Bunny’s treatment now that he has good money from selling his story. Bunny agrees gratefully, and Max gives him 100 dollars.
Even now that race is starting to become an arbitrary construct now that people can cross the racial divide, those on opposing sides of the divide are still separated by a “sea.” This again suggests a kind of insurmountable fixation on separating people based on race just as severely as if they were separated by geography.
Themes
Coincidentally, Max and Bunny walk past Crookman Sanitarium, where a sign out front says “Black-No-More,” with a neon arrow pointing from a white face to a Black face. Even though it’s close to 5 a.m., there is already a huge crowd outside the building, alongside a riot squad trying to maintain some order in the noise. People cheer as a whitened person emerges, and vendors sell peanuts and hot dogs. Bunny shakes Max’s hand and enters the building to try his luck at getting the procedure. Max says goodbye, telling Bunny to look him up in Atlanta.
The huge crowds outside Crookman Sanitarium highlight the idea that so many Black people want to avoid the discrimination that they face in their everyday lives and participate in the advantages and privileges that white society offers. But it also shows how much Dr. Crookman stands to profit now that people are trying to take the treatment en masse.
Themes
After Bunny leaves, Max stands in the crowd, feeling at home surrounded by all the other Black people. For a moment he wants to stay with them and share in their experience, but he realizes that he has to move on from the past and start his new adventure being white. The other people there would largely be suspicious of him anyway. He thinks again of how freeing it is to be white and to have a little money.
Even though Max appreciates the freedom and newfound benefits of being white, he suggests that he still isn’t fully free. Now, as a whitened person, can no longer engage with the people and culture that he once was a part of and loved.
Themes
When Max returns to his apartment, his landlady, Mrs. Blandish, doesn’t recognize him. When he explains his story, she is amazed but also horrified. She owns a hair-straightening parlor, and she knows that Dr. Crookman’s work will likely kill her business. She asks if Max is going to live downtown now, accusing him of not having any pride in his race. Uneasy, Max doesn’t reply and simply goes to pack, thinking about the trip down to Georgia and how he finally feels like an American citizen.
As a Black man, Max was constantly othered and made to feel that he wasn’t fully American—thus, becoming white is a means of trying to escape the racism and discrimination he faced.Separately, Mrs. Blandish (who is a fictional stand-in for Madam C. J. Walker), laments the idea that Max doesn’t have pride in his race. But ironically, she makes money off of hair straightening products that make Black people more like white people. This implies that her criticism of Dr. Crookman’s business is hypocritical, because she’s essentially doing the same thing that he is.
Themes
