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Chapter 4
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
A private plane lands in Los Angeles, and a distinguished-looking Black man steps out beside several white assistants. One of the white mechanics asks who he is (using a racial slur), and the other one tells him that it’s Dr. Crookman—the fellow turning Black people white. The men dream about having his money, and they wonder why he surrounds himself with white people—before realizing that they might be Black people that he turned white. The mechanics conclude that the Knights of Nordica ought to do something about this problem.
The white mechanics’ antipathy toward Dr. Crookman is tied to both race and class consciousness, as the men are clearly racist with their use of slurs but also envy Crookman for his money. The problem is that because of their racial bias, they have no way of achieving better wages or bridging wealth inequality. Instead of blaming elites of all races for their working conditions, they are fixated on blaming Black people.
Themes
On the seventh floor of a beautiful building, Crookman, Johnson, Foster, and several of their associates toast champagne to their continued success. They acknowledge, however, that opposition to their enterprise is growing every day. Crookman surveys what they’ve done. They’ve built 50 sanitariums from coast to coast with each servicing 105 patients at a time; they have an equipment factory and a chemical plant, four airplanes, a radio station; their expenditures total over $6.25 million while their income is $18.5 million. Crookman concludes that in the next four months, they can double their output and by the end of the year cut the treatment fee to $25.
This laundry list of Crookman’s achievements just how incredibly his business has grown. But again, all of this wealth and achievement has come from profiting off of the Black working class and the discrimination that they face. So even though Crookman is trying to help them overcome oppression, he is also taking advantage of them for his own benefit.
Themes
Johnson states that after they finish in the United States, they can move on to the West Indies—he doesn’t ever want their enterprise to end. Dr. Crookman thanks Foster and Johnson for their ingenuity and start-up money, and their dealings in Washington that stopped lawmakers from passing bills outlawing their practice (which cost nearly $1 million). In addition, because of Johnson’s secret corps of young women, now many legislators cannot openly oppose their efforts. For the next few hours, the three directors continue to report on their progress and exult in the perks of rich living.
Here, the book illustrates how taking advantage of the working class and amassing all of this wealth then enables Dr. Crookman and his associates to continue growing that wealth by bribing and blackmailing politicians. This demonstrates how the U.S. economic and political systems are rife with corruption, as elites can use their power and money to maintain influence over the working classes.
Themes
Meanwhile, Black society is in turmoil. Everyone is straining to get the Black-No-More treatment and they stop attending churches, giving to Black charities, or going to Black-owned businesses. Black politicians, meanwhile, lecture about Black solidarity so that they can maintain political power and wonder whether they should try to stop Black-No-More. They try to appeal to white politicians, most of whom have been bribed by Hank Johnson.
In addition to Crookman, Black politicians are also trying to use their wealth and status to maintain their power. Meanwhile, this conflict between the various interest groups simply drags out problems within the community and creates chaos that only hurts Black Americans. Both sides only care about themselves, but they still insist that they are trying to help average people.
Themes
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Meanwhile, the joyful atmosphere of Black neighborhoods is gone: the music, laughter, and abandon are absent, as everyone is scrounging for money to pay Dr. Crookman’s fee. People travel from all over to find one of the sanitariums, particularly from the South, because there are no sanitariums there. Various Southern communities tried to prevent this migration, but Hank Johnson bribes officials in the neighborhoods with bootleg liquor and money, making them turn their heads the other way as Black people leave in droves.
Again, even though Dr. Crookman’s intentions might have been noble, now there is widespread corruption in an attempt to make sure that Crookman’s company can continue earning money—all to the detriment of Black neighborhoods and culture, as the book describes here. Crookman and his associates are more concerned with making money than with considering the welfare of the people they are taking advantage of.
Themes
The National Social Equality League is aghast—for forty years they worked for full social equality for Black people. This organization had to depend greatly on white people’s charity, but now their income has been decreasing—particularly because often high-profile incidents of discrimination caused people to donate. The officials, many of whom live in palatial apartments, worry about the fact that actually achieving social equality will prevent them from living their rich lives.
The N.S.E.L. is a thinly veiled parody of the NAACP, an organization founded in 1909 whose mission is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.” And yet the book critiques the organization’s hypocrisy here, implying that the N.S.E.L.’s leaders actually hope for acts of discrimination because that is how they convince white people to donate to their organization and pay their salaries.
Themes
The N.S.E.L. founder, Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard, calls a conference of Black leaders around the country. For $6,000 a year, the Beard wrote editorials denouncing the white people he secretly admired and lauding the greatness of Black men and women he pitied and despised. He deified Black women but only employed light-skinned ones. He talked at white banquets about “we of the black race” and admitted in books that he was part French, part Russian, part Native American, and part Black.
Beard, as the head of the N.S.E.L., is a direct parallel to W. E. B. Du Bois, who founded the NAACP and has a similar background to the character. Here, it’s clear that the book is going to satirize real-life Black leaders. This passage suggests that Beard is hypocritical in preaching racial solidarity and yet inwardly participating in racist structures (like only employing light-skinned women) or holding racist beliefs (like pitying and despising fellow Black Americans).
Themes
At the meeting, Dr. Beard draws up a resolution addressed to the U.S. Attorney General. He does this because his staff worried that the other Black leaders wouldn’t possess the education necessary to write the document. Dr. Jackson, Beard’s dark-skinned secretary, addresses the room, explaining that Black-No-More is proving disastrous to their organization and that something drastic has to be done to preserve the integrity of Black society.
The book continues to demonstrate Beard’s hypocrisy: he again tries to champion the integrity of Black society while at the same time devaluing his peers. He assumes that they can’t achieve his same intellectual standard, seemingly because he has internalized anti-Black racism.
Themes
Jackson then turns to Walter Williams, a tall, heavyset white man with blue eyes, and discusses the situation in the south. Williams says that he has always been proud to be a part of Black society (his great-grandfather was mixed-race, it seemed), and that he can’t understand what has come over the rest of Black society.
Williams criticizes Black society even though, as a white man for all intents and purposes, he likely does not face the same discrimination as the average Black person. But even before Black-No-More, people have been able to manipulate their identities in ways that suit them.
Themes
More men speak, including Colonel Mortimer Roberts, a Black man from Georgia who is appalled at the idea that Black people would try to whiten themselves. He insinuates that they should all be aligning with militant organizations in the South to stop this whitening business. Another man, Claude Spelling, says that an underpaid Black worker should patronize Black stores instead of going to cheaper and cleaner chain stores.
The book uses Roberts and Spelling to level another critiques of Black leaders: that they are willing to work with racist organizations just for the sake of promoting racial solidarity. (Real-life activist Marcus Garvey had ties to white supremacist leaders because he and the leaders both argued for racial segregation.) The book also suggests that Black leaders expect average Black Americans to support racial solidarity to the detriment of their own financial well-being, even as these leaders have amassed a great wealth.
Themes
The next speaker, Joseph Bonds, heads the Negro Data League. He collects informative data showing that poor people go to jail more often than rich people, that most people are not getting enough money for their work, and that there is a connection between poverty, disease, and crime. By showing this data to white people, he has successfully gotten them to give more money so that he can collect more data—with little benefit actually going to Black people as a result.
This passage again critiques leaders like Bonds who are able to take advantage of racism by conducting studies about systemic inequality. None of the studies have any effect on remedying that inequality, but they make Bonds wealthy as a result. This again suggests that the leaders don’t necessarily care about solving inequality because they make so much money off of studying it.
Themes
Finally, a Reverend preaches fervently about the problems with Black-No-More, leading to a kind of spiritual in the meeting. Beard, annoyed, interrupts this emotional display by saying that they have a resolution asking the U.S. Attorney General to arrest Crookman and his associates. Though some are hesitant, they all agree to send it.
The book continues to portray the leaders’ actions as ironic, as they join in the spiritual meeting almost as a performative gesture, simply to prove their connection to Blackness. And again, even though they all preach racial solidarity, they aim to attack Crookman and his associates rather than working with them.
Themes
Later, Walter Brybe, the U.S. Attorney General, receives the resolution and talks to Gorman Gay, the National Chairman of the Republican party. Gay says that the N.S.E.L. doesn’t have any money, and they have to remain loyal to Hank Johnson. Brybe agrees, but he notes that a lot of white people are frustrated with Black-No-More. Gay again scoffs, saying that they don’t need to worry about it—working class white people don’t have any money either. Brybe then gets off the phone and writes a letter saying that he can’t interfere with a legitimate business whose methods are within the law, giving the statement to the press.
Here, Gay explicitly lays out how little elites care about the working class—either Black or white. They are only interested in the people and policies that will enable them to make more money, and in this case, it is by aligning themselves with Black-No-More. In this way, the book shows how so many elites are corrupt (Walter Brybe’s name, like Crookman’s, alludes to this), intent only on stoking their own wealth.
Themes
Santop Licorice, the founder and leader of the Back-to-Africa Society, reads Brybe’s letter in the paper with malicious satisfaction—he was always delighted when Beard was rebuffed. For years, Mr. Licorice had been profiting off of advocating for Black Americans to emigrate back to Africa—their first step was always paying five dollars for membership in his society and other sums to get them to Africa.
Santop Licorice is a clear analogue for Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association. This organization advocated for solidarity between members of the African diaspora and helped people immigrate back to Africa as well. But the book critiques how Licorice advocates for this idea not because he truly believes in it (because he doesn’t go back to Africa himself), but instead to fuel his own wealth.
Themes
But now, Licorice has been as hard hit as the other Black businesses and ventures. Why would anyone go back to Africa for $500 when they could stay in the United States and get white for $50? He hopes that Black-No-More’s activities will be stopped, and in the meantime, he attacks other Black organizations while preaching racial solidarity in his weekly newspaper.
Again, the book points out Licorice’s hypocrisy in preaching racial solidarity while not embodying that solidarity himself. Like the other Black leaders, he is interested in profiting off of the Black working class for his own financial gain.
Themes
Putting the paper aside, Licorice asks his secretary where their treasury is. She tells him that the Sheriff got most of it yesterday. He asks if there’s anything they can sell so that he can take a trip to Atlanta, but she says no. They trade sarcastic barbs, and he says that if they can’t get some money, they won’t be able to pay her salary. He then starts on a long letter to Henry Givens.
This passage is another pointed critique of Marcus Garvey. Like Licorice does here in reaching out to work with Henry Givens, Garvey was also heavily criticized for working with white supremacist groups in order to push his own agenda—a clearly hypocritical move when trying to advocate for racial equality.
Themes
