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In 1967, as the movement for civil rights was turning into a bitter, often violent battle for black power, Harold Cruse's The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual burst onto the scene. It was a lacerating attack on integration, and set the agenda for black cultural, social, and political autonomy. A classic of African American social thought, the book and its author went on to influence generations of activists, artists, and scholars. Cruse's intelligence, independence, and breadth of vision virtually defined what it meant to be a black intellectual in modern America. In this first anthology of Cruse's writing, William Jelani Cobb provides a powerful introduction to Cruse's wide body of work, including published material such as excerpts from Crisis, as well as unpublished essays, speeches, and correspondence. The Essential Harold Cruse is certain to become standard reading for anyone interested in race in American society.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Blue for Brother Cruse; by Stanley Crouch
What Is Left? An Introduction
PART ONE: EARLY WRITING
Essays1. Salute to Josephine Baker, Magnificent Negro Artist (1951)
2. A Negro Looks at Cuba (Unpublished, 1960)
3. Race and Bohemianism in Greenwich Village (1960)
4. James Baldwin, the Theater and His Critics (Unpublished, 1963)
Correspondence5. Letter to the
Amsterdam News (1956)
6. Open Letter to Harry Belafonte (Unpublished, 1956)
PART TWO: FROM
THE CRISIS OF THE NEGRO INTELLECTUAL (1967)
7. Individualism and the "Open Society"
8. Cultural Leadership and Cultural Democracy
9. Negroes and Jews--The Two Nationalisms and the Bloc(ked) Plurality
PART THREE: BLACK POWER ERA
Essays10. On Explaining 20th Century Negro History (1967)
11. The Fire This Time? Elridge Cleaver:
Post-Prison Speeches and Writings (1969)
12. The Integrationist Ethic as a Basis for Scholarly Endowment (1969)
13. The Little Rock National Black Political Convention (1974)
PART FOUR: FROM
REBELLION OR REVOLUTION? (1968)
14. Rebellion or Revolution? I
15. Rebellion or Revolution? II
16. Marxism and the Negro
PART FIVE: POST-BLACK POWER WRITINGS
Essays17. The Racial Origins of American Theater: A Response to Robert Brustein (Unpublished)
18. The New Negro History of John Hope Franklin--Promise and Progress (Unpublished)
19. Amilcar Cabral and the Afro-American Reality (1975)
20. The Pan-African Constituency and the Black Electorate (1975)
21. Review of the Paul Robeson Controversy (1979)
Correspondence
22. Letter to Ralph Story (Unpublished, 1986)
23. Interludes with Duke Ellington (Unpublished, 1982)
24. Letter to Adolph Reed (Unpublished, 1986)
PART SIX: FROM
PLURAL BUT EQUAL (1987)
25. Conclusion
PART SEVEN: INTERVIEW WITH HAROLD CRUSE
26. An Interview with Harold Cruse (1997)
References
Index
About the author
Howard Cruse; Edited by William Jelani Cobb with a foreword by Stanley Crouch
