Crookman’s Solution to “The Negro Problem”

In 1931 George Samuel Schuyler (1895-1977) published the first successful satirical novel in African American literature. Entitled Black No More, the novel centers around Dr. Junius Crookman, an African American doctor who invents an electronic treatment that will “change Black to White in three days,” and promises, in Crookman’s view, to cure the race problem in America. A former numbers racketeer, Hank Johnson, helps the doctor promote his invention. Together they establish a chain of extremely successful “Black-No-More” clinics throughout the United States. As the African American population begins to vanish, entrepreneurs of both races face potential economic ruin because slums cease to be profitable business investments. It is no longer necessary to enforce the Black Codes, and poor white southerners awaken to the sudden reality that they are at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

As the months and years pass and the African American population becomes almost extinct, black children are born to ostensibly white couples with greater and greater frequency. Although these offspring can themselves be transformed into whites through Dr. Crookman’s treatment, their black infancy is a source of embarrassment to many of their parents. The rapid disappearance of African Americans causes social, political, and economic upheavals that lead to panic and paranoia across the nation. Meanwhile rabid racists go insane trying to determine who is a former black. Eventually the Black-No-More organization is pressured into shutting down.

The climax of Schuyler’s satire comes when Dr. Crookman, appointed Surgeon General by a Republican administration, publishes the results of his study comparing “original” whites with “converted” whites. To Dr. Crookman’s amazement his findings indicate that it is still possible to distinguish between the two types of whites: The “converted” whites are “two to three shades lighter” than the “original” whites. Schuyler comments on the irony of the situation and offers a rationale for the demise of the Black-No-More organization:

To a society that had been taught to venerate whiteness for over three hundred years, this announcement was rather staggering. What was the world coming to, if the blacks were whiter than the whites? Many people in the upper class began to look askance at their very pale complexions. If it were true that extreme whiteness was evidence of the possession of Negro blood, of having once been a member of a pariah class, then surely it were well not to be so white!…

Dr. Cutten Prodd wrote a book proving that all enduring gifts to society came from those races whose skin color was not exceedingly pale, pointing out that the Norwegians and other Nordic peoples had been in savagery when Egypt and Crete were at the height of their development. Prof. Handen Moutthe, the eminent anthropologist (who was well known for his popular work on The Sex Life of Left-Handed Morons Among the Ainus) announced that as a result of his long research among the palest citizens, he was convinced they were mentally inferior and that their children should be segregated from the others in school. Professor Moutthe’s findings were considered authoritative because he had spent three entire weeks of hard work assembling his data. Four state legislatures immediately began to consider bills calling for separate schools for pale children. Those of the upper class began to look around for ways to get darker. It became the fashion for them to spend hours at the seashore basking naked in the sunshine and then to dash back, heavily bronzed, to their homes, and, preening themselves in their dusky skins, lord it over their paler, and thus less fortunate, associates. Beauty shops began to sell face powders named Poudre Negre, poudre le Egyptienne and L’Afrique.

excerpted from: G. Reginald Daniel. 2002. More than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (pgs 1-2)