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
Some time later, Hank Johnson, Chuck Foster, Dr. Crookman, and Gorman Gay gather at the physician’s hotel. Gay explains that the Republicans are having a tough time getting ready for the fall presidential campaign. Foster assures Gay that Black-No-More won’t need favors much longer, because they’ve done about all the business they can do: the following week, they’re closing all but five of their sanitariums (though they are keeping open the lying-in hospitals).
Here, the book establishes the scale at which Crookman has turned Black Americans white—so much so that they are actually shutting down business. But even though almost all Americans are white at this point, Gay makes it clear that people are still fixated on race—so much so that the next presidential election is even centered around the issue.
Themes
Gay warns that the hospitals will be in constant danger. To win the campaign and protect the hospitals, the Republicans need millions of votes and at least 20 million dollars. That’s why he’s there—he knows they are rolling in wealth and he needs five million dollars from them. He tells them to think of what might happen if these poor women are stuck with their Black babies. Hearing this, Foster and Johnson agree to give the money.
The book again illustrates how racism corrupts innocence in America. Even though race has nearly been eradicated as a concept, Black babies are still in terrible danger because white people feel compelled to fixate on race—despite the fact that Crookman has shown it to be completely constructed.
Themes
The Republicans indeed need a lot of money to re-elect President Goosie, as Givens’s addresses are stirring up much Democratic sentiment. However, at the Democratic National Convention in July 1936, the Anglo-Saxon crowd wants to nominate Arthur Snobbcraft, while the Knights of Nordica are intent on nominating Givens. The Northern faction of the party is holding out for Governor Grogan of Massachusetts. Through 20 ballots, the vote remains deadlocked, until leaders retire to a hotel suite to try and sway the different factions.
The array of potential nominees for the Democratic Party illustrates how focusing on race has enabled white elites like Givens and Snobbcraft to gain not only immense wealth, but also to vie for incredible political power.
Themes
The leaders quarrel over who is helping each other the most, but no one is able to come to an agreement for more than 12 hours. They even go over picking an alternative to all of their candidates, but no one is satisfactory. At the end of the day, Matthew gives an ultimatum: nominate Givens, or the Knights of Nordica will withdraw their support for the Democrats entirely. This finally gets everyone to give in to him, and the delegates nominate Givens for President and Snobbcraft for Vice President.
Matthew’s ultimatum shows how much influence he has been able to gain by playing up white people’s focus on race. It also shows how ignorance makes people particularly susceptible to manipulation and helps give people like Matthew the power to choose who the presidential nominee will be.
Themes
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A few days later, Republicans nominate President Goosie for reelection, and they adopt a nebulous platform stressing the party’s record in office and its slogan. Listening to Goosie’s speech in New York City, Dr. Crookman thinks that it sounds almost identical to the one Givens gave a few days earlier. Over the next months, the campaign gets underway, and each candidate makes vague statements and promises.
Here, the book offers another critique of politicians and elites: even though Goosie and Givens are in opposing political parties, their speeches sound largely the same. This suggests that politicians are merely doing whatever they can to get themselves reelected and to stay in power, not actually helping the people they’re meant to serve.
Themes
Meanwhile, Samuel Buggerie releases a partial report about the births and marriage records: one quarter of the people in one Virginia county possess non-white ancestry. These findings have been replicated in other disparate parts of the country. He decides to publish his full report just before the election, inspiring fear about maintaining racial purity and ensuring the Democrats’ success.
Buggerie’s preliminary research not only reinforces Dr. Crookman’s early study that Black and white people share a large degree of heritage, but it also shows that identity is unstable no matter a person’s race. Many people who believe they are “pure” white have Black ancestry, despite using their “pure” ancestry as a tool to oppress others.
Themes
The political campaign is long and bitter: on the Democratic side are those who are “pure” white while the Republican supporters know they are “impure” or have reason to suspect it. There are disputes even within families as people become suspicious of each other. Dr. Crookman’s hospitals are denounced viciously, though Northern newspapers suggest that homes would be wrecked without the hospitals.
Because so many people have become white, this skepticism about identity and deception is rampant—people have no idea how to trust even their family members’ identities. This illustrates how identity has become completely destabilized in society, as people are constantly questioning one another.
Themes
Generally, the press follows the crowd, and they start to insinuate that the opponents of Black-No-More take the law into their own hands. Soon after, a mob sets fire to a Crookman hospital, killing 12 babies. The papers name and denounce mothers who make it out alive with mixed-race children—many of them are socially prominent. The nation is shocked, and Republican support dwindles.
This horrific incident illustrates how ignorance—people who believe that “impure” white people or children should be outed or demonized—leads to a violent action and, as a result, a complete corruption of innocence. It is particularly telling that this violence leads to further support for the Democratic Party, not less, showing how people have completely forgone their morals out of hatred and the desire to be superior.
Themes
Gorman Gay is at his wit’s end, and Joseph Bonds and Walter Williams, two of his campaign staff, also don’t know what to do. Though Williams had passed as Black for years because of a mixed-race grandparent, he now embraced his white heritage when the National Social Equality League was forced to cease operations. Bonds, former head of the Negro Data League, had become white—but both had been unable to stomach the Democratic crowd.
Williams’s transition from identifying as part of Black society to then identifying with white society (even without taking the Black-No-More treatment) again reinforces that the way people define their identities isn’t fixed. The book suggests that white and Black racial identities can be manipulated, and as such, these definitions of bloodline and skin color become meaningless.
Themes
Williams and Bonds discuss Beard, who has also become white and who is now working for Dr. Buggerie at the Anglo-Saxon Association—though the Association doesn’t know who he is. They comment that he probably hates the Democrats and might have some information that can help him.
Here, the book again critiques the Black leaders who preached racial solidarity for their own profit, but who have now become white and are still working in their own interests. For example, Beard is working for the Democrats despite the fact that they have adopted a white supremacist platform.
Themes
Williams travels to Richmond to meet with Beard, and Beard reveals that Buggerie has been investigating people’s family trees and has been discovering some astounding facts. He tells Williams that they’re keeping the information in a basement on index cards, and that they probably wouldn’t want anything to happen to their information before they’re able to fully compile it. Soon after Williams leaves Beard, Williams strolls by the Anglo-Saxon Association’s headquarters and notes the guards around the place.
Again, both the Republicans and Democrats are attempting to use (or cover up) Buggerie’s research, depending on whatever they believe will improve their party’s political standing. They want to sway the ignorant masses in whatever way they can in order to maintain their political power.
Themes
