“…The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual electrified a generation of activists and intellectuals. The product of a lifetime of struggle and reflection, Cruse's book is a singular amalgam of cultural history, passionate disputation, and deeply considered analysis of the relationship between American blacks and American society. Reviewing black intellectual life from the Harlem Renaissance through the 1960s, Cruse discusses the legacy (and offers memorably acid-edged portraits) of figures such as Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin, arguing that their work was marked by a failure to understand the specifically American character of racism in the United States. This supplies the background to Cruse's controversial critique of both integrationism and black nationalism and to his claim that black Americans will only assume a just place within American life when they develop their own distinctive centers of cultural and economic influence. For Cruse's most important accomplishment may well be his rejection of the clich?s of the melting pot in favor of a vision of Americanness as an arena of necessary and vital contention, an open and ongoing struggle (34).”
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“Harold Wright Cruse (3/8/1916 - 3/25/2005) was an American academic who was an outspoken social critic and teacher of African American studies at the University of Michigan until the mid-1980s. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967) is his best-known book…In 1947 Cruse joined the Communist Party for several years…"Harold Cruse" was "recruited as an undercover Communist Party informant (he proved willing to name names of onetime co-members, but nothing more).”…n the mid-1960s Cruse, along with LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), founded the Black Arts Theater in Harlem…
After publishing The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual in 1967, he was invited to lecture at the University of Michigan (1968) and taught in the African-American Studies program at the Center for Afro-American and African Studies there until the mid-1980s. Cruse was one of the first African-American studies professors, becoming one of the first to earn tenure without holding a college degree(35).” |
King, Richard H. "Harold Cruse's The Crisis Of The Negro Intellectual Reconsidered." Journal Of American History 92.4 (2006): 1511-1512. Academic Search Complete. Web.
CHRISMAN, ROBERT. "The Crisis Of Harold Cruse." Black Scholar43.3 (2013): 20-28. Academic Search Complete. Web.
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CHRISMAN, ROBERT. "The Crisis Of Harold Cruse." Black Scholar43.3 (2013): 20-28. Academic Search Complete. Web.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51NeV-hlFuL._SX302_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
https://blackthen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cruz-436x560.jpg