George Schuyler to Christian2

Letter 12

Christian Complains about Schuyler

Exchange Gifts to make Amends

George S. Schuyler

320 Manhattan Avenue

New York, N.Y.

April 7, 1937

My dear Mr. Christian:

Let me thank you for the beautiful pens which arrived this morning via Pittsburgh. I shall keep them as all lovely things should be kept in a prominent and privileged place.

I am extremely grateful to you, and as evidence of my appreciation and gratitude I am sending herewith a lizard skin cigarette case (you can use it for anything) from Yola, Nigeria. With cordial good wishes, I am

Sincerely yours,

George S. Schuyler

P.S. It was necessary to write on it in indelible ink in order to get it through the customs.

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George Schuyler (1895-1977), born in Providence , Rhode island, enlisted with the United States Army in 1912 and worked his way to the rank of lieutenant.

After the First World war Schuyler moved to New York City where he worked as a laborer and later as a journalist on The Messenger in 1923. For awhile a member of the socialist Party, Schuyler contributed to a wide variety of radical journals including Opportunity, Crisis, and Nation.

Schuyler eventually became associate editor of the Pittsburgh Courier. He supplied the weekly paper with a regular column and was one of its chief editorial writers. On one assignment he took the Jim Crow tour of the Southern states. books written by Schuyler include The Negro Art Hokum (1926), Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia (1930) and Black No More (1931).

During the McCarthy era Schuyler moved sharply to the right and contributed to American Opinion, the journal of the John Birch Society. In 1947 Schuyler published The Communist Conspiracy Against the Negroes. Black and Conservative (1966), his autobiography, was published in 1966. George Schuyler died in 1977.

Black and Conservative: The Autobiography of George S. Schuyler / Robert A. Hill, ed. Ethiopian Stories. Northeastern University Press, 1996

Jeffrey B. Leak ed. Rac(E)Ing to the Right: Selected Essays of George S. Schuyler. University of Tennessee Press, 2001