The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual

It's way beyond disconcerting having to read a reactionary hack like Stanley Crouch sneak his introduction into a book like Harold Cruse's "Crisis of a the Negro Intellectual". In trying to co-op and explain away the radical thought Cruse exemplifies, Crouch comes off as an interloper trying to mute the legacy of an independent intellectual giant. I prefer any version of this classic other than this latest New York Review of Books printing which gives an unoriginal literary lemur like Crouch free reign to propagandize his views into legitimacy. Get your hands on an "Apollo Edition" or the version published by "Quill"!! Stanley Crouch could easily find a home for his essay in the neo-liberal journal of his choice, but including his introduction as part of the book itself is a travesty. It's the intellectual equivalent of having had Martin Luther King Jr. write the introduction to Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth."

In this sparwling 500 page book, Cruse lays out his polemics against the Civil Rights movement for ignoring the economic issues that plagued us then and now,acusses black artists for betraying their own cultural gifts to gain wider credibility and lays down the basic ethos of American captialist life.. Every racial group for themselves. And on top of that goes first after black ministers who were more concerned about their own power than uplifting American- Americans and Norman Podhoretz practically calling him a fascist (he is) and the scared cow of all... Saying the so-called Black- Jewish alliance was a sham seeing all this by 1967. Unlike Black intellectuals of today, Cruse spares no one institution in American life in one of the great books in American Thought. This one book I read 10 years ago along with the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" changed my life and committed me to a life of reading and seeking truth wherever it led me.Cruse who died last year, was America's last great intellectual unlike those today who appear on C-SPAN, Fox and other news outlets being "pop intellectuals" Cruse was searching for truth and solutions in the lives of African- Americans and for that we should be grateful.

I don't think Black people can ever have a real conversation about unity until they read this book. Especially the chapter called 'Idealogy in Black'. The book is extremely honest about West Indian, African and African American behavior towards each other which ultimately leads to implosion. He covers everything, The Harlem Renaissance, Communism and many other critical topics but I think his thoughts on why Black movements fail (internal strife/lack of cultural, political and economic direction) are dead on.

after 11 years, i finally got around to reading this book....what i liked about it was cruse put it bluntly that the main job of the negro intellectual/artist was not to be a politician unless they were a politician of culture..at times, it seemed that they book was a 500+ page advertisement for the communist party...i didn't realize that so many blacks were marxists....i found the segments of the books where he revealed the shortcomings of paulrobeson as a leader and lorraine hansbury's unwiillingness to write black plays interesting....he also get into detail about the black arts movement, and it's leader, leroi jones. the only complaint i have about books like this is that sometimes reading them feels like your dragging around a ball and chain....but the subjects rewarded my patience...this is a good place to start for the beginning black intellectual...