world, in which Negroes would not onlyrnbe saved but would exact vengeance uponrntheir white oppressors. In rapid succession,rnNoble Drew Ali (murdered by rivalsrnwithin his church in 1916), MarcusrnGarvey (convicted of mail fraud in 1923,rndeported in 1927), and Wallace Fardrn(“disappeared” in 1933, perhaps murderedrnby his friend and successor, thernHonorable Elijah Muhammad), arose tornminister to impoverished, confused, andrnangry black masses.rnSchuyler recognized that the TalentedrnTenth movement, like the NAACPrn(founded in 1909 by Jewish socialists ledrnby Joel Spingarn, with DuBois as the tokenrnblack) and the white-financedrnHarlem Renaissance of the 1920’s, was arncase of wealthy whites indulging theirrnfantasy of a “black” movement. Schuylerrnexcoriated the Renaissance men asrn”lampblacked Anglo-Saxons” (a precursorrnof the “Oreo” charge), and in a famousrnessay in the Nation, he mockedrntheir movement as “The Negro-ArtrnHokum.” Schuyler denied the possibility,rnin a nation in which Negroes andrnwhites lived side by side, of a separatern”black” aesthetic.rnIn his satirical 1931 novel Black NornMore, Schuyler mocked the “race men”rnfor secretly wishing to be white, “integrationists”rnsuch as the goateed DuBois (asrn”Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard”)rnfor profiting from black misery, andrnracist whites for using blacks to act outrnfantasies of primitivism. Like manyrnsatires. Black No More takes an extremernidea to its logical conclusion, and asks:rnWhat if white America did not have anyrnmore Negroes to kick around? As thernstory proceeds, the colored Dr. JuniusrnCrookman invents an operation forrnmaking black folks white-skinned andrnstraight-haired. In lightning speed, thernnation becomes monochromatic asrnits entire black population “vanishes.”rnCrookman becomes an instant millionairernas blacks flock to him, whereafterrnthey change their names, rewrite theirrnpasts, and take up with unknowing whiternconsorts. No lack of comic and dramaticrncomplications ensue when it becomesrnclear that the operation does not changernthe genetic program for the pigmentationrnof one’s offspring. The black nationalistsrnand their white spouses thenrnhave a rude awakening, as their first-bornrnare all mulattos. And so America goesrnfrom being Negro-free to being whitefree.rnIn Black No More, Schuvler assumedrnthat most of humanity is closer to thernDevil than to angels (his favoriternmetaphor for American race relationsrnwas an “insane asylum”); that the majorityrnof men are con men, and that the fewrnwho truly believe in anything, as in therncase of the novel’s white supremacistrnleader, are even more pathetic. ForrnSchuyler, DuBois’ Talented Tenth of coloredrnsociety was of no more help to thernaverage Negro than the leaders of thernracist white order. Indeed, he saw thosernwho made a profession of railing againstrnJim Crow as having the strongest interestrnin its preservation: every lynchingrnbrought in more money from rich whiternreformers. Moreover, Schuyler saw blackrnnationalist rhetoric as a smoke screen obscuringrnits practitioners’ contempt forrntheir erstwhile constituents, whose pocketsrnthey were busy picking. We are allrnthe same, argued Schuyler—and Godrnhelp us! Ultimately, he surmises, if therernwere no color line, men would inventrnone.rnSchuyler was clearly the most influentialrnand most gifted black journalist thisrncountry has ever seen. His serials ThernBlack Internationale: Story of Black GeniusrnAgainst the World and Black Empire:rnAn Imaginative Story of a Great New Civilizationrnin Modern Africa were alone responsiblernfor doubling the Courier’s circulationrnto 250,000 between 1936 andrn1938. Meanwhile, Schuyler was a regularrncontributor to an astounding variety ofrnwhite and black socialist and white conservativernpublications, including W.E.B.rnDuBois’ The Crisis, A. Philip Randolph’srnThe Messenger, the Nation, and hisrnfriend and mentor H.L. Mencken’srnAmerican Mercury. The very people hernso often satirized admired him in publicrnand employed him as a writer, an editor,rnand a manager.rnFollowing Schuyler’s ultimate breakrnwith the Courier in 1966, he publishedrnhis autobiography. Black and Conservative,rnand became a regular staff memberrnat William Loeb’s Manchester UnionrnLeader. The once militant, colored socialistrnalso began writing for the JohnrnBirch Society’s weekly. Review of thernNews; he had been writing for thernBircher monthly, American Opinion,rnsince 1961.rnThe break with the Courier camernwhen its editors refused to publishrnSchuyler’s attack on the awarding ofrnthe 1964 Nobel Peace Prize to MartinrnLuther King, Jr. William Loeb publishedrnit instead: “Neither directly nor indirectlyrnhas Dr. King made any contributionrnto world (or even domestic) peace.rnMethinks the Lenin Prize would havernbeen more appropriate, since it is nornmean feat for one so young to acquire 60rnCommunist front citations. . . . Dr.rnKing’s principal contribution to worldrnpeace has been to roam the country likernsome sable Typhoid Mary, infectingrnthe mentally disturbed with perversionsrnof Christian doctrine, and grabbing fatrnlecture fees from the shallow-pated.”rnThough some of the major black newspapersrncontinued to publish into thern1960’s, their owners’ eagerness to accommodaternthe civil rights movementrnmerely hastened their demise as journalistic,rnas well as black, institutions.rnThose who control the “civil rights”rnapparatus today cannot comprehend arnGeorge S. Schuyler or the black Americarnin which such a man could succeed.rnThus we have DuBois, Jr., a.k.a. HenryrnLouis “Skip” Gates, imposing DuBois’rnleast impressive notion—the hackneyedrntheory of the alienated, “schizophrenic”rnblack American—on Schuyler, whom hernhandily disposes of as a “fragmentedrnman.” Gates’ case for Schuyler’s “fragmented”rnpsyche is based on the twornnovellas Schuyler wrote as “Samuel I.rnBrooks,” which are collected as BlackrnEmpire—The Black Internationale: Storyrnof Black Genius Against the World andrnBlack Empire: An Imaginative Story of arnGreat New Civilization in Modern Africa.rnThe two main characters in both storiesrnare the evil genius Dr. Henry Belsidusrnand the intrepid young reporterrnCarl Slater, who becomes Belsidus’s protegernand confidante. Belsidus, abortionistrnto the “ladies” of white society andrnleader of a criminal organization markedrnby martial discipline, uses the moneyrnfrom the white women (who are variouslyrnhis mistresses, patronesses, clients, andrncrime victims) and from the tithes of hisrncynical Church of Love to finance hisrnscientific research and to raise a secretrnmilitary force, with which he plans to liberaternAfrica from the yoke of white colonialismrnand eventually to take over thernworld.rnSchuyler’s Black Internationale playedrnto any number of supposed “black fantasies”:rnstealing from, ravishing, plundering,rnand ultimately killing pale whiternbeauties; the violent black criminal asrnliberator; the black church as a potentiallyrnunstoppable world power; the beliefrnthat the world is run by secret societiesrnand conspiracies; and finally, the revan-rn42/CHRONICLESrnrnrn