# Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard — Black No More character guide

> Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard in Black No More by George Schuyler.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Dr. Beard, Beard

**First appearance:** 0004-ii

## Snapshot

A proud Race Man of the old school, Dr. Beard has spent his life collecting Negro achievement and now finds his life's work abolished by a single medical procedure.

## Who they are

Beard belongs to the genteel Negro aristocracy — the Episcopal son raised on African masks, race newspapers, and the careful cultivation of a civilized self. He is vain about his learning and his standing, a man who wants genteel popularity without notoriety, and he cannot fathom why anyone would refuse a good thing when offered. As Black-No-More empties the race he has devoted himself to chronicling, his bewilderment curdles into something sharper, making him the novel's most intimate portrait of a man undone by the very progress he cannot oppose.

## In the story

### [Black No More](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/black_no_more_se/chapters/black-no-more)

A Black leader who is alarmed by the potential of Black-No-More to undermine his influence and the Black community.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/black_no_more_se/chapters/v)

Founder of the N.S.E.L., presiding over the emergency conference, worried about the decline of his organization.

### [Chapter X](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/black_no_more_se/chapters/x)

Working undercover for the Anglo-Saxon Association in Richmond, he reveals to Williams the explosive nature of the genealogical data being compiled.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/black_no_more_se/characters/shakespeare_agamemnon_beard
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/black_no_more_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/black_no_more_se/characters