It was 40 years ago, Aug. 31, 1977, that George Schuyler died. He has been forgotten, and that's a shame.
Schuyler was one of the most recognized and read columnists in America, notably from his platform at one of America's greatest black newspapers — the Pittsburgh Courier. Pittsburghers need to remember what we had in our own backyard.
Schuyler, for the record, was not a Pittsburgher. He need not have been nabbed by the Courier, which, though Pittsburgh-based, was a national newspaper.
Originally from Syracuse, N.Y, Schuyler would spend a crucial formative period in his 20s and 30s in the ideological asylum that was (and remains) New York City. There he devoted some time and energies to the political left's gods that failed — socialism and communism — which he would come to reject and excoriate with brilliant flare.
Schuyler was especially aghast at attempts by communists to recruit black Americans.
“The Negro had difficulties enough being black without becoming Red,” wrote Schuyler in his autobiography, “Black and Conservative.” He warned fellow blacks that “an attempt was being made by Communists to make a dupe out of the Negro which could only end in race war and his extermination.”
The latter was precisely what happened to Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the leading black-American communist in the 1920s, who a decade later — after following his heart to Stalin's USSR — perished in the Gulag.
“With Communism bringing only misery to white people,” asked Schuyler, “what could it offer non-whites?”
By 1923, Schuyler was publicly debating black communists like Comintern stooge Otto Huiswoud, who he called “a Red Uncle Tom always ready to do the Kremlin master's bidding.” He blasted other black communists, from W.E.B. Du Bois to future Barack Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis. It was around this time that Schuyler caught the attention of Ira F. Lewis, general manager of the Pittsburgh Courier, who asked him to do a column for $3 per week. “I was delighted,” recalled Schuyler.
The rest is history.
For almost 40 years, Schuyler would write some of the best material blasting collectivism and extolling conservatism.
Think of all the black Americans who have since endured remarkable hardships and truly achieved the American dream. The numbers are staggeringly impressive. If ever there was a group of Americans who survived and thrived without government and with government against them, it has been African Americans.
As Schuyler wrote: “I learned very early in life that I was colored but from the beginning this fact of life did not distress, restrain, or overburden me. One takes things as they are, lives with them, and tries to turn them to one's advantage or seeks another locale, where the opportunities are more favorable. This was the conservative viewpoint of my parents and my family. It has been mine through life.”
And throughout that life, George Schuyler's columns in the Pittsburgh Courier were read by millions. Pittsburghers should pause to remember the man, his mighty pen and his many contributions.
Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include “A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century.”
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