Chapter 4 Summary

In Atlanta for three months, Max now goes by the name Matthew Fisher. He is nearly out of money, has failed to find the beautiful blond girl, cannot find work, and is bored with life as a white man. Sometimes he goes to Auburn Avenue, which is a predominantly black area of town, but no one will speak to him there because he is white.

Matthew is confused as to why so many Southern newspapers seem unfriendly to Black-No-More, Incorporated until he realizes that the business is bad for white businesses. If white laborers no longer had black people to think of as a menace, they might think of other things, like organizing labor and demanding higher wages. White businesses, therefore, want their workers to see race as a problem so that their workers do not unionize. Matthew considers this an opportunity to...