The Harold Cruse's The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Reconsidered

Book Cover......Page 1 Half-Title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 List of Contributors......Page 10 Introduction......Page 12 Notes......Page 24 Part 1 An Overview of the Cruse Project......Page 26 1 More Than Just a Politician......Page 28 Notes......Page 49 Nativist Imperative in American Life......Page 54 A Political Culture of Whiteness......Page 55 Attributes of Black Modernist Dilemma......Page 56 Explaining the Black Modernist Dilemma......Page 57 Dissecting Cruse’s Black Nationalist Sympathy......Page 58 Basic Elements of Harold Cruse’s Theory......Page 59 Cruse’s Naive Psychologism......Page 60 A Critique of Cruse’s Views on White Ethnic Development......Page 61 Cruse’s View of the Interracialist Fallacy......Page 62 The Interface of Interracialism and Black Modernization......Page 64 A Note on Harold Cruse and West Indian Intellectuals......Page 66 Harold Cruse’s Interface with the Black Elite......Page 69 Harold Cruse Celebrates Early Harlem Black Capitalists......Page 70 Cruse’s Text Emits a Phony Aura of Militancy......Page 73 Problematics of Cruse’s Problack Nationalism......Page 76 A Concluding Note......Page 80 Notes......Page 83 3 Negro Exceptionalism......Page 86 Notes......Page 101 Part 2 Cruse as Cultural Critic......Page 106 4 Harold Cruse’s Worst Nightmare......Page 108 Notes......Page 118 5 The African American Musician as Intellectual......Page 122 The Musical Landscape of the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual and Accomplishment in Jazz......Page 123 Autonomy and Self-Determination in African American Musics......Page 128 Conclusion......Page 130 Notes......Page 131 Part 3 Black, Jews, and Communists......Page 134 6 Harold Cruse on Blacks and Jews......Page 136 Notes......Page 147 From Crusade to Crisis......Page 154 The “Jewish Crusade”......Page 158 The Lost Legacy of Black Marxism......Page 161 The Literary Record......Page 164 Notes......Page 167 8 The Crisis of Blacks and Communism......Page 174 Notes......Page 181 Part 4 Cruse as Cold Warrior......Page 184 9 The Cold War Seduction of Harold Cruse......Page 186 Notes......Page 197 10 The Crisis of Historical Memory......Page 200 Notes......Page 214 Part 5 The Problematic Status of Female Intellectuals......Page 218 Practitioner Intellectuals and Gender Issues......Page 220 Bodies Matter......Page 223 Liberation Contributions of Academic Intellectuals......Page 227 Bodies That Think: Womanist Constructive Approaches......Page 231 Notes......Page 236 12 Where are the Black Female Intellectuals?......Page 240 Note......Page 242 Part 6 Cruse and Black Nationalism......Page 244 13 Harold Cruse and Afrocentric Theory......Page 246 Notes......Page 255 14 Rethinking the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual......Page 258 From Black to Red and Back: Harold Cruse and the Communist Party......Page 259 The Lonely Struggle......Page 261 A Cuban Excursion......Page 263 Revolutionary Nationalism: The Political Writings of Harold Cruse......Page 265 Cruse and the Freedom Now Party......Page 267 Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: Reactions and Responses......Page 268 Conclusion......Page 273 Notes......Page 275 Part 7 Cruse as Political Thinker......Page 280 15 Home to Harlem......Page 282 Black Nationalism and African American Identity......Page 283 Harlem as Ideal Community......Page 289 Notes......Page 295 16 Cruse’s Dismissal of African American Liberalism......Page 300 African American liberalism and the State......Page 302 Toward the Formation of African American Liberalism......Page 304 African American Liberalism: A Thick Description......Page 306 Two Strains of African American Liberalism......Page 308 The NAACP and the Problem of a Black Liberal Intelligentsia......Page 312 Conclusion......Page 317 Notes......Page 318 Conclusion......Page 324 One: Absence of a Sociology of Intellectuals......Page 325 Three: The Mistaken Centrality of Harlem......Page 326 Four: Misunderstanding the Centrality of African American religion......Page 327 Five: The Role of Black Intellectuals in the Civil Rights Movement......Page 328 Eight: Marginalizing Female African American Intellectuals......Page 329 Nine: Ignoring Black Intellectuals Outside of the Culture Industry......Page 330 Eleven: One-Dimensional Critique of the Communist Party......Page 332 Thirteen: Contradictions in Argument......Page 333 Notes......Page 335 Index......Page 336 Thirty-five years after its initial publication, Harold Cruse's "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual," remains a foundational work in Afro-American Studies and American Cultural Studies. Published during a highly contentious moment in Afro-American political life, "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual" was one of the very few texts that treated Afro-American intellectuals as intellectually significant. The essays contained in Harold Cruse's "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Reconsidered" are collectively a testimony to the continuing significance of this polemical call to arms for black intellectuals. Each scholar featured in this book has chosen to discuss specific arguments made by Cruse. While some have utilized Cruse's arguments to launch broader discussions of various issues pertaining to Afro-American intellectuals, and others have contributed discussions on intellectual issues completely ignored by Cruse, all hope to pay homage to a thinker worthy of continual reconsideration. In the thirty years since the publication of The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Harold Cruse's analysis of the necessity of a cultural revolution in America by African Americans has exerted great influence, often critiqued but never superseded.