Free Republic

Given that the teaching of black studies is today dominated by privileged incompetents and political hacks who teach – in one of Schuyler’s favorite words -- hokum, I suppose it is fitting that they either disparage or ignore George S. Schuyler. After all, they hold the greatest of all black Americans, Booker T. Washington, in contempt, so why should Schuyler fare any better?George Samuel Schuyler was born in 1895 in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of a chef, and grew up in Syracuse, New York. He served six years in the U.S. Army (1912-1918), eventually attaining the rank of First...

Well, it's Black History Month, and I'll bet you haven't heard one thing about George S. Schuyler (1895-1977). George S. Schuyler was, simply, the greatest black journalist this country has ever produced. (Normally, I eschew qualifiers like "greatest black," as opposed to "greatest," period, but this is journalism we're talking about. I will never, in five lifetimes of sitting in newspaper morgues, looking at microfilms of ancient newsprint, be able to read enough to determine who America's greatest journalist was.) From 1924-1966, he bestrode the black press like a colossus. Working for Robert Lee Vann's (1879-1940) Pittsburgh Courier weekly newspaper,...