The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual

<p>Published in 1967 as the early triumphs of the Civil Rights movement yielded to increasing frustration and violence <i>The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual </i>electrified a generation of activists and intellectuals. <br><br>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.<br><br> 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. <br><br>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&#233;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.</p>