George Schuyler, journalist and author: Mixed Experience History Month

George Schuyler (1895-1977) was an African-American journalist and author.  He began his journalism career at the Pittsburgh Courier in 1924 writing a weekly column.  Two years later he became the newspaper's chief editorial writer.  In 1927, he married a wealthy white heiress, Josephine Cogdell.  Schuyler published his first book, Black No More, in 1931.  The satiric story of a black scientist who has created a method to make black people white skewered both black uplift groups as well as white supremacists for obsessing over race.  Schuyler also published his autobiography in 1966 titled Black and Conservative.  In it he wrote: "At best, race is a superstition.  There will be no color war here if we will and work not to have one, although some kind of color line there may always be, as there is elsewhere in the world.  We do not need to share the wealth as much as we need to share our heritage so that all may proudly claim ownership in it.  We need to strive to become one people in our resolution, determination, and achievement instead of two peoples, colored and white."  Schuyler was the father of Philippa Schuyler, a biracial piano prodigy and journalist.  (Alicia Keys is set to star in a movie about Philippa's life.)