Leadership and Hypocrisy Theme Analysis

One of the most striking things about Black No More is not only that it satirizes white society’s reaction to Black Americans becoming white, but also that it contains caricatures of many of the real-life Black leaders at the time. At the National Social Equality League meeting in the book (which stands in for the real-life NAACP), a group of Black leaders attempts to figure out how to get Black people to maintain pride in their race rather than turning white. However, author George Schuyler implies that they are doing so not because they actually have that same pride, but because it profits them to espouse these beliefs. And because so many of them are direct proxies for figures like W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Madam C. J. Walker, Schuyler suggests that in reality, many Black leaders are just as hypocritical as the figures in the book—they preach racial solidarity while having little racial pride themselves.

The book’s character Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard parodies W. E. B. Du Bois, and Schuyler’s criticism of Beard—that he has very little in common with most Black Americans and wants very little to do with them—highlights Du Bois’s own hypocrisy. Beard’s description draws immediate comparison to Du Bois. Beard is the founder of the N.S.E.L.; writes a journal for the organization called The Dilemma; is a graduate of Harvard, Yale, and Copenhagen; and is described as having a “full spade beard.” Likewise, Du Bois founded the NAACP (an organization advocating for racial equality and justice); wrote a journal for the organization called The Crisis; was a graduate of Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin; and wore the same kind of beard. In this description, Schuyler thinly veils Du Bois in Beard, while also immediately setting up his critique. Just the pretentious name—Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard—implies that Schuyler believed Du Bois was haughty and elitist. Further descriptions add to the book’s critique, as it notes that Beard “denounc[ed] the Caucasians whom he secretly admired and laud[ed] the greatness of the Negroes whom he alternately pitied and despised” in his journal editorials. It goes on, explaining that Beard was completely unfamiliar with the “down-trodden black workers” and that even though he “deified” Black women, he employed “aught save octoroons.” In this way, Schuyler depicts Du Bois as someone who claimed to be proud of his race, but in reality, was hypocritically disdainful of the majority of Black Americans.

Schuyler also critiques Marcus Garvey through the character of Santop Licorice, who uses the “Back to Africa” movement to promote racial solidarity even though he doesn’t fully believe in it or take part in that same solidarity. The book introduces Licorice as the head of the Back-To-Africa Society, which advocates for Black Americans to immigrate to Africa. This bears comparison with Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a Black nationalist organization that advocated for solidarity between members of the African diaspora and helped arrange for immigration for Black Americans who wanted to return to Africa. Yet just as Garvey never visited Africa himself, Schuyler writes that Licorice had never gone to Africa and had no intention of going there (merely profiting off of those who wanted to), pointing out his hypocrisy. Later in the book, one of the heads of the white supremacist group the Knights of Nordica considers asking some of the Black leaders to speak to his members because they have a common enemy in Black-No-More (a treatment that turns Black people white). This mirrors how Garvey had strong ties to members of the Ku Klux Klan because they both argued for racial separatism—again illustrating his hypocrisy in advocating for racial solidarity while working with the very people who oppress and murder his fellow Black Americans.

The book also criticizes businesspeople like Madam C. J. Walker, who is lauded as a self-made Black businesswoman even though she makes her fortune off products to make Black people appear more like white people. Madam C. J. Walker (born Sarah Breedlove) is often credited as the first female self-made millionaire. But she made her fortune mostly off of hot combs and other products that made Black people’s hair look more like white people’s hair. This echoes the character of Sisseretta Blandish, who owns a hair salon in Harlem. She condemns people who take the Black-No-More treatment as not having any “race pride.” But the book points out that she found success in “making Negroes appear as much like white folks as possible,” and as a result she was recently “elected for the fourth time a Vice-President of the American Race Pride League,” just as Walker joined the Executive Committee of the NAACP. In this way, the book highlights Blandish’s (and thus, Walker’s) hypocrisy in stating that she shows race pride while making money off of products that portray white hair or features as the ideal.

Throughout his life, Schuyler’s critiques of Black leaders made him a controversial figure. But his caricatures illustrate that no one is above criticism, because he suggests that many Black leaders do not practice what they preach. While people like Du Bois, Garvey, and Walker are lauded for their success and leadership, Schuyler suggests that they, too, show their hypocrisy in gaining that success from products or ideas that they either do not believe in or that undermine racial solidarity.