Was Rod Walker Black In Heinlein's Classic "Tunnel In the Sky?"

No. 

The question was never even raised until decades after Heinlein was safely in the grave and unable to speak up.  Ditto for his wife, Virginia.

Currently the main champion of Rod being black appears to be one Robert James, PhD, who is a member of the Heinlein Society and self-identifies as a "Heinlein researcher and scholar." 

Here's what he has to say:

The evidence is slim but definite. First and foremost, outside of the text, there is a letter in which RAH firmly states that Rod is black… As to the text itself, it is implied rather than overt. RAH often played games with the skin color of his characters, in what I see as a disarming tactic against racists who may come to identify with the hero, then realize later on that they have identified with somebody they supposedly hate. He does this in a number of different places. Part of this may also have to do with the publishing mores of the time, which probably would not have let him get away with making his main character black in a juvenile novel. The most telling evidence is that everybody in "Tunnel" expects Rod to end up with Caroline, who is explicitly described as black. While that expectation may seem somewhat racist to us today, it would be a firm hint to the mindset of the fifties, which would have been opposed to interracial marriages. I think RAH himself would have been infuriated by the suggestion that this was racist; indeed, I think it more likely that this was simply the easiest way to signal a reader from the fifties that he's been slipped a wonderful protagonist who is not white. I have taught this novel many times, and at least twice, a teenage student has asked me if Rod was black without me prompting the possibility whatsoever.

First and foremost, it would be nice if the Heinlein Society would provide a copy of this letter to the general public.  Without it, I'm a little suspicious that it does not say what Dr. James claims it does.  Perhaps at some point Heinlein planned to make Rod black but later changed his mind. 

Since the author is long dead, the only thing that can be considered truly canonical is the book itself.  And the book flatly contradicts the notion that Rod Walker was black.

Let's go through the few descriptions of Rod provided.  My copy of the book has this cover:

So when I refer to page numbers it is for this edition.

On page 65 the book states "Rod himself was dressed only in tan, scratches, torn and filthy shorts, and a few scars."  Have you ever heard anyone refer to a black person's coloration as a tan?  I haven't.

Then on page 78, "Rod flushed and kept still."  This goes hand-in-hand with page 100 where "Rod felt himself turning red."  If Rod had been black, Heinlein would have used the phrase "Rod felt himself growing hot."  He's used this phrase elsewhere to describe someone becoming both embarrassed and "fightin' mad."  He chose instead to say that Rod was becoming "flushed" and "red" (presumably in the face).  Not an apt description of an ashamed or angry black man.

Contrast this with the descriptions of the definitely black Joseph in Farnham's Freehold.  He never once had a tan or flushed or turned red.  He felt shame and fear and anger, but never turned other colors.

There is much better evidence in the text that Rod was of British or Scottish ancestry.  First, there's the family name.  Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: "Walker is a surname of English and Scottish origin." Now, you might be thinking "what's in a name?"  Ordinarily I'd agree with you.  But for this particular book I assert that Heinlein was paying close attention to at least some names.  Grant Cowper's pre-election rhetoric bears a striking similarity to that of US President Herbert Hoover who is associated with the famous campaign slogan "a chicken in every pot."  Similarly, Rod's political opponent makes promises so rosy it almost rises to "granting a cow per person."  I don't think that was a coincidence.

But getting back to Rod's ancestry, there's the fact that both Walker children call their mother by the English idiom "mum." And on page 28 Rod describes his sister Helen as having that well-known bane of English women, thick ankles.

Speaking of Helen, she named her knife "Lady Macbeth" after Shakespeare's "Queen of Scotland." On page 24 she's wearing a kilt- traditional Scottish garb.  When I first read that I assumed that kilts were worn by all members of the Amazon Corps, regardless of race.  I now wonder if the Corps was multicultural enough for everyone to be allowed to wear the garb of their culture as a dress uniform.

But there is also evidence that Rod is Latino.  On page 101 he is referred to as a "cholo."  If Rod were black then the bad guy, Jock McGowan, would have referred to him as "boy" (or worse) a word Heinlein used more than once in Farnham's Freehold.

As for the notion that "everybody expects Rod to end up with Caroline" that's just not true.  NO ONE expects that.  His family questions his relationship with her… and he quickly sets them straight.  Caroline herself says that she's planning on marrying someone identified only by the initial M.  Later she states that she was interested in marrying Grant Cowper.  When she thinks Rod is dead she states she thinks of Rod like a brother, not a romantic interest. In Rod's words "Carol was sweet on half a dozen fellows..."  But never him. They spent two years as very close friends on Tangaroa, but it never turned into anything more.  And no one ever stated an expectation that they would "end up together."

There's really only two pieces of information that can possibly even suggest Rod being black:

1. On page 211 Rod says of Caroline "she looks a bit like you" to Helen.
2. On page 144 Caroline says Rod "always reminded me of my brother Rickie."

Well, look at this:

LL Cool J "looks a bit like" Telly Savalas.  And yet one's black and the other is Greek, thus proving that it is possible for people of dissimilar races to look "a bit" like each other.

Has anyone in your life reminded you of someone else?  Was it because of skin color or because of personality traits?  Samuel L. Jackson has never reminded me of Gary Coleman- despite them both being black.  But Will Smith's character in I Am Legend reminded me a lot of Tom Hanks in Cast Away.  Not because of physical characteristics but because of their behavior and mannerisms.

Now let's deal with the notion that two of Dr. James' students asked if Rod was black and that's somehow proof that he was.  I used to teach Computer Science at a university; in my Advanced Data Structures class I was asked a few times if a binary tree can have more than one root.  The answer, of course, is no.  The very act of some student asking me the question DOES NOT somehow make the answer "yes."

But the best evidence is right on the cover of my edition, which came out in 1977.  Yeah, it's possible Heinlein wanted to make Rod black and an evil racist publisher at Scribeners bullied him out of it.  But by 1977 the Civil Rights revolution was over a decade in the past.  Heinlein already had a sex change character (I Will Fear No Evil) under his belt as well as a Latino, and several blacks. Five years later no one batted an eye over a bi-sexual character (Friday).  At that point in his career he could have easily told Ballantine that Rod was black and they would undoubtedly have made him so on the cover art.  But that didn't happen.  The cover (approved by Heinlein) clearly shows an Anglo White Rod Walker.

Indeed, the notion of a racist Scribeners is belied by the fact that in the 1948 novel Space Cadet, fully integrated officer Lt. Peters is described as "black as the ace of spades" while Heinlein was making the point that racism was unacceptable in the Space Patrol.

The Heinlein Society is evidently seeking to retconn the idea that Heinlein was really a "progressive liberal" all along and Tunnel In the Sky written to champion civil rights.  But as his own work makes so abundantly clear, it just ain't so.  Heinlein did not play games- Juan Rico was unabashedly Argentine, Caroline Mshiyeni was Zulu, Dan Davis was a child molester, and Lazarus Long was quite literally a motherf-  had some Oedipal issues.  His characters were what he said they were.  Heinlein's "agenda" can be summed up in his list of things every person should be able to do:  "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."  No matter the color, no matter the gender, this is the list that defines a Competent Man.  And that's what defines Heinlein's protagonists, not skin color.

Update August 2014:  cheerful iconoclast is 100% correct; Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers was most certainly Filipino.  It's not just that he "spoke Tagalog" at home. He also stated "There ought to be one [a starship] named Magsaysay."  Johnny was referring to Ramon Magsaysay, the seventh President of the Phillipines and hero of WWII.

To Rich Chambers I can only say "so why not post a scan of the letter?"  Why not let us all see so we can judge for ourselves? Why is it no one gets a chance to authenticate the letter?

Even if the letter is genuine, we have no idea what it says because no one is allowed to see it.  For all we know, the letter could read like this:  "...In answer to your question of whether Space Cadets is really based on Verne's Mysterious Island  I can only say 'sure!  And Rod Walker was a negro.'"  Some people would understand the sarcasm, and some would say this is unequivocally Heinlein stating Rod was black.

For now, I've gotta judge this letter the same way I judge unicorns: Until I see one it does not exist. No, I'm not willing to take the word of someone I've never met. Especially when the text of Tunnel In the Sky flatly refutes that Rod Walker was black. Robert Anson Heinlein was never a coward- he explicitly told us that the heroine of Tunnel in the Sky, Caroline Mshiyeni, was African.  He would have done no less for Rod. To believe that Rod was secretly black is to believe that Heinlein lacked the fortitude, the integrity, to tell us so. And that's one heck of an insult.