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
The story flashes back to 11 p.m., the evening before election day. Snobbcraft and Buggerie secretly escape to a stately country home near Richmond, Virginia. A man named Frazier answers and tells them that everything’s ready. Snobbcraft yells at Frazier saying that he should have had the plane outside and ready, calling him “poor white trash.” Buggerie says not to antagonize the man, noting that he’s their only chance to get away.
Snobbcraft’s callous treatment of Frazier and his classist comment calling him “poor white trash” again illustrate that he cares very little about lower-class people. He only adopted white supremacist attitudes in order to bolster his own political power and wealth.
Themes
Buggerie and Snobbcraft then bicker about whose fault it is that they’re in this mess—Snobbcraft for ordering the statistical research or Buggerie for leaving the summary behind. They wait 10 minutes while Frazier inspects the plane and then they board, glad that they are able to get away from the mob.
Just as Kretin experienced, Snobbcraft and Buggerie realize that fostering ignorance has led to a violent, uncontrollable movement—one that has become so extreme that it is now turning against them.
Themes
Snobbcraft tells Frazier that they want to go to his house in Mexico, but Frazier protests that they don’t have enough gas to go that far. As he considers what to do, they hear a cavalcade of cars and gunshots nearing the plane—a mob has followed them. Snobbcraft tells Frazier to just get out of there and they can get some gas later on. Fearing the mob will catch up with them, Buggerie pushes Frazier out of the cockpit and takes control himself.
The white supremacist movement has become violent, to the point that people are coming after someone like Snobbcraft for his Black ancestry (despite the fact that many of the mob members likely have Black ancestry as well). It also shows how unstable people’s identities are. Snobbcraft and Buggerie are still white and hold white supremacist beliefs, yet they’re now facing the same violence that Black people have faced for centuries—all because of revelations about their bloodlines.
Themes
As Buggerie and Snobbcraft take off, a bullet tears through the side of the plane. They are able to take off, but they have soiled themselves and have to change into spare clothes in the plane. Later, when they fly over Mississippi, they realize they will have to stop for gas. Realizing that there’s a box of shoe polish in the pocket of his clothes, Buggerie concocts a plan to put the shoe polish all over their bodies and pretend to be Black. Then Frazier can go get gas, and they won’t be recognized if people search the plane. The others agree to this plan, and Buggerie and Snobbcraft smear the shoe polish over their faces and arms.
Here, the book illustrates how absurd the fixation on race has become in America. Eradicating race hasn’t actually led to the end of racism; instead, it has made people focus on race in a new way. The irony is that the very people leading this oppressive movement are the people who have been harmed the most by it, to the point that they believe it is actually safer to pretend to be Black rather than to be a white person with Black ancestry.
Themes
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Frazier tries to land the plane, but there’s no good place to land. It bumps over longs and through weeds, and Frazier steers it into a ditch. The plane turns completely over, and one wing is completely smashed. Frazier is caught in the wreckage under the engine, cries out, and lays still—he’s dead. Shaken and bruised, Snobbcraft and Buggerie crawl out of the cabin and wonder what to do now.
Frazier’s death underscores how dire the situation has become for Snobbcraft, Buggerie, and other people whose ancestries have been discovered. They are now facing fatal consequences for their deception.
Themes
Happy Hill, Mississippi, has been preparing for the open-air revival of the True Faith Christ Lovers’ Church. This section of the state has been relatively untouched by the troubles prompted by Black-No-More, as the townspeople have all lived there for generations and know themselves to be genuinely white. They are happy to be the most Fundamentalist of all Christian sects in the United States. The community could also have boasted about their high illiteracy rate and the lynching record. Happy Hill had long rid itself of the few Black people who lived there and any Black person who happened to come through the place.
The story shifts to the town of Happy Hill, Mississippi, which has been largely untouched by the events of the previous few years. Yet despite the town’s relative cultural isolation, the book still makes a connection between Christianity (the Fundamentalist sect, rooted in the belief that they are superior to all others), ignorance (the low literacy rate) and violence (the fact that they have lynched any Black people who’ve lived there or passing through).
Themes
Happy Hill has a sign on the general store and post office that Black people should “REDE & RUN. IF U CAN’T REDE, RUN ENEYHOWE.” The townspeople either hung or shot and broiled any person who ignored the warning. There was a large iron post in front of the stores on which Black men and women were burned, with a notch representing each person killed. The news that all Black people were becoming white was received with regret by the people of Happy Hill, and so they turned to religion with renewed fervor.
The townspeople make terrifying threats toward Black people, which again shows that they are bent on oppressing others to make themselves feel superior. At the same time, the book shows that they are anything but superior and are, in fact, quite hypocritical. They implicitly criticize Black Americans for not being able to read when they don’t have high literacy rates either and cannot spell the words on their sign.
Themes
The story flashes back several weeks to when the Reverend Alex McPhule arrives, claiming to be the founder of a new true faith. The townspeople listen to him with rapt attention as he describes an angel who visited him and told him to preach the true faith of Christ’s love. McPhule preaches an old-fashioned “hellfire-and-damnation sermon” that soon has the others proclaiming Christ’s love.
McPhule’s easy ability to win over the town using Christian doctrine shows how ignorance is dangerous because it makes people easy to manipulate. As long as McPhule describes how his new faith will be to the townspeople’s advantage because it will save them from hellfire and damnation, they listen—again connecting Christianity to ignorance and gullibility.
Themes
Soon, Alex McPhule creates an altar in his cabin where people visit him to talk about his Christian message—mostly middle-aged wives and young girls. He wants everybody in the county to be part of his congregation and knows that this can only happen with the aid of a messenger from heaven—some kind of demonstration. He hopes that God will send a Black person for the congregation to lynch.
McPhule’s professed faith—even if he believes in it and its implicit white supremacy—is simply a ploy to gain favor and prominence in the town. He wants to perpetrate violence against Black people just to show that God is talking to him. At the same time, the book implies that he is acting very un-Christian both in wanting to murder and also in taking sexual advantage of the women and girls.
Themes
McPhule prays fervently, and two nights later, a bat flies in his window before flying back out again. He tells everyone in the congregation that an angel visited him, and the Lord will answer his prayer and send a sign. Soon, the people talk of nothing but The Sign. They are on edge for the great revival scheduled for Election Day and hope the Lord will make good on His promise.
The book continues to reinforce that people are willing to believe anything that makes them superior, and that their ideology and mob mentality has the potential to turn violent. Their constant discussion of the Sign collectively consumes them and works them up into a frenzy.
Themes
Election day arrives, and many citizens cast their ballots for Givens and Snobbcraft, as they haven’t heard of the developments of the previous 24 hours. They then head to the revival, where Alex McPhule stands looking at their upturned faces. He knows his power is growing and he hopes the Lord will answer his prayers and send The Sign.
Just like other leaders throughout the book, McPhule recognizes that he is using ignorance and racism in order to bolster his own power and manipulate others.
Themes
McPhule preaches and sings with the Happy Hill True Faith Choir, calling on God to save the white race. Suddenly, McPhule stops and shouts at God to save them and send them the Sign, composing a hymn on the spot and singing it over and over until the people join in.
McPhule continues to connect Christianity and white supremacy, reinforcing the idea that simply spouting ideology that makes others feel superior is an easy way to manipulate them.
Themes
At the same moment, Arthur Snobbcraft and Samuel Buggerie approach the town in their nondescript clothing and blackened skin. Snobbcraft suggests washing off the shoe polish, but Buggerie says that it would be suicidal to turn up in the town as themselves because their picture has been all over the papers.
The book has set up dramatic irony, in that Snobbcraft and Buggerie believe that they will be safer posing as Black, which is ironic to begin with. Yet clearly, walking into this town that is so primed for violence is a bad idea.
Themes
Nearby, they hear a meeting, and Snobbcraft is relieved—he knows that they’ll be sincere Christians and will treat them right. Buggerie is nervous, suggesting that they should avoid crowds. But Snobbcraft dismisses Buggerie’s concerns and heads over to the crowd. Seeing the men, people start to shout racial slurs, “Praise God!” and “Lynch them!”
Even though the people are Christian, the book has set up the idea that Christianity can be easily used to manipulate ignorant people. Here, that manipulation results in violence.
Themes
Buggerie and Snobbcraft speed away, but the mob overtakes them. The mob marches the two men to Happy Hill, punching and kicking them during their triumphant march. Buggerie weeps and Snobbcraft offers money, but the two men are not liberated. The two men insist that they are not Black, but they are only beaten harder. They tell the mob to take off their clothes, and when the villagers pause and do so, they immediately apologize and become disappointed to see that the men are white. In the middle of this growing tension, a young man approaches with a newspaper, saying that the Democratic candidates have Black ancestry and fled town in planes that day—the people are bewildered and curse the two vanished candidates.
The book again reinforces that mob violence can take dangerous hold over ignorant people. It also underscores the idea that even when the rest of the world is criticizing Buggerie and Snobbcraft for having Black ancestry, this is nothing compared to the violence that Black people have faced in the South. This near-lynching only stops when the townspeople realize that Snobbcraft and Buggerie are white. It is particularly notable that the townspeople (despite their supposed Christian morality) take triumph and joy in murdering people for no reason, as this implies that being Christian doesn’t guarantee that a person is moral.
Themes
Later, washed and refreshed, Snobbcraft and Buggerie smoke in front of the general store with the crowd, relieved at their narrow escape. But suddenly, McPhule approaches them and points out that the picture in the paper is of Snobbcraft. The crowd quickly descends on them once more, ignoring their protests. They hold them down, strip them naked, and cut off their ears and genitals. Someone sews their ears to their backs and tells them to run. Despite their pain, the two men try to escape, but they only go a few feet when they receive six shots to their backs.
The horrific acts that Snobbcraft and Buggerie endure again illustrate just how dangerous ignorance and mob violence can be—and how much power it has given McPhule, given that he can easily make people act in these brutal and horrific ways. It also illustrates just how much the two men’s plan has backfired, as they die because of the racism that they helped foster and gained their own power from.
Themes
The mob then drags Snobbcraft and Buggerie, not yet dead, to a stake and binds them back-to-back while children bring scraps and kerosene. McPhule ignites the pyre, and the two men scream as they burn alive. The fire crackles as the crowd whoops with glee. In the crowd are two or three whitened Black people who were too afraid for their own lives to do anything, but others look at them rather sharply for not enjoying the spectacle appropriately. So, they yell and prod the burning bodies, banishing any suspicion that they are not 100 percent “Americans.”
This section contains one of the book’s most scathing critiques. First, in implying that the people are “American” because they are white and acting violently, the book indicts America as a nation built on white supremacy. It suggests that buying into that system is a prerequisite to becoming American, even though race is almost entirely socially constructed. And it shows how identity and race have become completely convoluted, as Buggerie and Snobbcraft (who are white) are tortured and beaten for having Black ancestry, while formerly Black people are the ones who are perpetrating this violence.
Themes
When the roasting is over, the more adventurous members take toes and teeth from the two bodies while McPhule looks proudly on. This is the crowning of his life’s ambition—God answered his prayers. As he feels the hundred-dollar bill from Snobbcraft’s clothes in his pocket, he is happy.
While McPhule attributes his actions and the mob violence to God answering his prayers, it is also clear that he has ulterior motives in taking money from Snobbcraft and delighting in the power that he can wield over the mob.
Themes
In the last days of the Goosie administration, the Surgeon-General, Junius Crookman, publishes a paper explaining that the Black people he had made white are two to three shades lighter than the “real” white people—a staggering announcement. Many people look askance at their very pale complexions, believing that now it is bad to be so white. The entire country starts examining shades of skin color again. Pale people who do not have blue eyes began to be whispered about. A song, “Whiter than White,” becomes popular across the nation.
This announcement completely shakes the public and also calls into question what ulterior motives Crookman may have. Again, he is not eliminating racism; he is simply making people focus on different aspects of appearance (like eye color, or the fact that formerly Black people are a few shades paler than most people). Again, even though race is almost completely constructed and has become essentially meaningless, people still want to find ways to fixate on it.
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The new white people begin to grow self-conscious as they face greater and greater discrimination. Karl von Beerde founds the Down-With-White-Prejudice-League—some believe he is the same Dr. Beard who headed the National Social Equality League. Soon, tons of releases come out attempting to prove that those with exceedingly pale skin are just as good as anybody else.
The book takes one more opportunity to critique Black leaders’ hypocrisy. While Beerde preached racial solidarity among Black people, he still had to give in and get the Black-No-More treatment. Now, he’s paying the price by facing discrimination again as a white person with very pale skin.
Themes
Dr. Cutten Prodd writes a book proving that Nordic peoples were savage while Egypt and Crete were at the height of their development. Professor Handen Moutthe, the eminent anthropologist, writes a paper stating that the palest citizens are mentally inferior and that their children should be segregated from others.
This passage parodies reality in the 1930s, when people cherry-picked evidence in order to support the idea that white people were superior. The fact that in the story, people try to justify the opposite argument, illustrates both arguments’ absurdity in the first place, and it suggests again that racial differences are completely superficial.
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People in the upper class begin to look for ways to get darker like tanning or bronzing their skin. Mrs. Sari Blandine (formerly Sisseretta Blandish) begins to study skin stains, taking off of work for a week and coming back to find that a recent arrival from Czechoslovakia took her job. But soon, she develops a skin stain that would impart a long-wearing light-brown tinge to the pigment. As a result, she becomes popular and famous, opening a shop in her front room.
The book again critiques Sari Blandine/Sisseretta Blandish (who stands in for the real-life figure Madam C. J. Walker) as hypocritical. She purported to have great pride in her race, yet she both marketed products to Black people to be more like white people. Now, she markets the opposite, simply trying to bolster her own wealth.
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By the time President-Elect Hornbill is inaugurated, Blandine’s stain has become widespread—young men avoid a girl without one, and white faces are startlingly rare. The United States becomes darker and darker. In two years, 15 companies imitate Blandine’s product, and the shades grow darker and darker, until Zulu tan or even charcoal become the most popular.
In just four years, people’s perceptions of race have completely flipped, to the point that believing in “white purity” or “white supremacy” or gaining an advantage as a white person means having dark skin. Any definitions of what these races really mean have been completely undermined.
Themes
One Sunday morning Surgeon-General Crookman sees in the newspaper a photograph of a happy crowd of Americans at Cannes. In the group he recognizes Hank Johnson, Chuck Foster, Bunny Brown and his Black wife, Mr. Givens, Mrs. Givens, Matthew, and Helen—all of whom are as dark as Matthew Fisher Jr., who played at their feet. Crookman smiles and passes the paper to his wife.
By the end of the book, Crookman has completely destabilized notions of race and identity while also becoming incredibly wealthy—all while remaining Black himself. Meanwhile, he illustrates how people are still so fixated on race, albeit in a new way. And even though they aren’t even in the United States anymore, they still struggle with what their racial identities mean. However, the fact that they are as dark as Matthew Fisher Jr., who doesn’t have to change anything about his skin, perhaps suggests a hopeful note. It implies that in the future, people can live as they are rather than yearning to change their identities or facing discrimination for it, because definitions of race will have become meaningless.
Themes
