The novel is known not only for its satiric bite and inventive plot machinations, but also for its focus on racially motivated economic injustice and the caricatures of prominent figures of the American 1920s including W. E. B.

The novel represents a cornerstone of the New Negro Movement in its transformative discussion of the aesthetic and cultural traditions present in African American art, in which the social concept of Blackness is challenged.

The novel begins at a speakeasy in Harlem on New Year's Eve, where protagonist Max Disher's romantic advances are rejected by a white woman solely because he is Black.

As the Black-No-More procedure grows increasingly popular, it wreaks havoc on the social and economic institutions of Harlem, drawing resistance from leaders in the African American community.

In order to earn some money, he travels to Atlanta, Georgia, and joins Reverend Harry Givens's white supremacist organization, The Knights of Nordica, claiming that he has the expertise necessary to help them end Black-No-More.

This becomes dangerous for Matthew, however, when Helen becomes pregnant, raising the specter — faced by an increasing number of newly whitened individuals — of a non-white child betraying his true identity.

The Knights of Nordica break into politics, teaming up with the well-funded Anglo-Saxon Association, whose leader, Arthur Snobbcraft, shares the Democratic presidential ticket with Rev.

However, with the genealogy project nearing completion on the eve of election day, the results indicate that almost all Americans have at least some African ancestry, including Snobbcraft, Buggerie, Givens, and Helen.

[4] When George Schuyler's Black No More appeared in early 1931, it entered a culture primed for its reception by more than three decades of apprehensive and contradictory public fulmination, posing as and often passing for a reasoned debate, on the subject of racial essences and their relation to national character.

In his spoof on Harlem's Talented Tenth; of the stock themes, incidents, and characters peopling their work; of W.E.B Du Bois (Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard, later Dr. Karl von Beerde, editor of the Dilemma) and the NAACP ...[5]At the core of the New Negro Movement was a desire for a re-creation of self, both individually and collectively.

Tracking a series of financial transactions in the novel that center on race, I argue the Black No More illuminates new market possibilities for the trade of racial property in commodity form during the Fordist era.

[7]Black No More aligns with Schuyler's long held sentiments towards race in America, which argue against the concepts of a color line rooted in exaggerating and demeaning African American Culture.

In early 2020, The New Group announced it was developing a musical adaptation of Black No More directed by Scott Elliott with a book by John Ridley and choreography by Bill T. Jones.