The sage of Sugar Hill : George S. Schuyler and the Harlem Renaissance /

A prolific and often-controversial African American journalist, Schuyler (1895-1977) gained particular notoriety late in his career by running as a Conservative Party candidate against popular Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and by his savage newspaper attacks on the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement. Wily, unpredictable, often exasperating, Schuyler remains an understudied figure, so Ferguson's major scholarly effort to rescue Schuyler from historical oblivion is particularly welcome. Focusing on Schuyler's early life and public career, Ferguson (black studies and American studies, Amherst College) argues that Schuyler is best understood and appreciated as a satirist in the tradition of Mark Twain, Herman Melville, H.L. Mencken, and Sinclair Lewis; he relentlessly aimed his pen at the foibles and contradictions surrounding American discourses about race. Ferguson offers an absorbing account of Schuyler's rise as one of the most popular and influential journalists of his time, providing along the way astute analyses of Schuyler's combative and sometimes contradictory views. Meticulously researched, carefully documented, and engagingly written, this volume sets the standard for future Schuyler scholarship. ^BSumming Up: Essential. All readers; all levels. J. A. Miller George Washington University