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On the Passing of Harold Cruse E-mail

it’s too bad that the inaugural post to this blog is an obit, but i’ve learned enough to know that life doesn’t really care about your own individual sense of timing. i learned yesterday that harold cruse, the critic, playwright, essayist, activist, professor and intellectual curmudgeon had passed.

i first encountered him on the far wall in the “politics” section of a pyramid bookstore in washington, dc. this was back in the late 1980s when that entire canon of stuff — ben-jochanon, john henrik clarke, cheikh anta diop, etc. — was all new to me and i had set out to methodically devour all of it. cruse was not of that ilk — even tho he and clarke had been friends back in the 1950s and 60s. he was travelling a different road and i passed over the massive “crisis of the negro intellectual” in favor of some other now-forgotten piece of afrocentria.

Harold Crusei came across the book years later, in my mid-20s and the flair, originality and straight-up acidity of his prose left my head spinning. like a cat had took the dozens and applied them to intellectual discourse. communists, liberals, muddle-headed race officials of all political stripes — it didn’t really matter what they were calling themselves ‘cause cruse analytically gin-su’ed them anyway.

i think cruse was probably one of the primary reasons that i wound up writing a doctoral dissertation on african american anticommunists. when i was researching that project, i came across a cache of cruse materials that had never been published. i wrote him a letter and asked if he would consider me as editor of a harold cruse reader. i really didn’t expect him to agree, but when he did it was probably the best day of my grad student career.

the thing that cruse brought to the table was a commitment to resolving the issues that he saw as undermining black leadership — and thereby black people — for decades. and unlike a whole lot of other cats who were that mantle of public intellectual, cruse actually laid down a blueprint. crisis of the negro intellectual was — along with “wretched of the earth” and “the autobiography of malcolm x” the required reading for black powerites.

he followed crisis with “rebellion or revolution?” and then, in the mid-eighties, “plural and equal” both of which elaborated on the themes he had put down with crisis. a few months ago he gave me a call and told me that he was working on a book that would respond to his many critics and that he might need my assistance in researching it. and, man, he had some cats in his crosshairs.

even then he was in poor health and i didn’t know if he was physically strong enough to see the project thru to completion. but i tell you, there’s some degree of comfort to be had in the fact that his life expired long before his willingness to start an intellectual brawl ever did.

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I agree
written by Bernadette, February 06, 2008
You know,I was thinking the same thing. Isaid if whom i want win doesn't I will turn republican. We haven't gotten what we deserve anyways so, voting republican "WHAT DO WE HAVE TO LOSES"
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written by Leslee, April 07, 2008
I remember a bit about this cat. I'll have to go back a read some of his writing. Again... thank you for being a light...
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About the william lynch theory
written by Tiffany barr, June 28, 2008
I am currently taking a class at a local collage and recently learned about the william lynch speech, I am a little  upset that my teacher would teach this subject as truth when I have found no way to track the original origan of the speech. I was wondering if I should say something to the dean about what he is teaching to be fact when there is no real evidence behind the william lynch speach. I think he is promoting prapaganda and this is not why I went to coolage what is your opinion on what I should do? Should I dorp it or speak up?
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Harold Cruse
written by Langalibalele, July 18, 2008
I've been a fan of Cruse since my early twenties, but never knew much about him. He and E. Franklin Frazier are, to me, the groundbreakers in revolutionary analysis for blacks in North America. The Caribbean has, of course, Rodney, Eric Williams, Padmore, Garvey(!), James, and other giants. But Frazier and Cruse did their work in, what, the Fifties amid Jim Crow and McCarthyism.

I am not discounting Malcolm X, yet his intellectual contribution lagged behind his more important agitational capacity. George Jackson and Forman really push forward revolutionary thought during the Sixties tho they still don't have that vicious, working class animus which Frazier and Cruse brought to the soiree and eventually blew the roof off the mutha.

Ever notice how black psychologists like Cress-Welsing, Nathan and Julia, and others studiously avoid mentioning the great anti-colonialist shrink, FRANTZ FANON? Like his work will give you leprosy. The black middle class cravenly fears him, and it fears Frazier and Cruse. Those guys are like my own nigger bible. We battle folks on the Willie Lynch question to keep him off the agenda, and we battle folks to get righteous thinkers put onto the agenda.

When I seent your piece on Willie Lynch (Terry Howcott hipped me), I immediately wrote an essay and included your link. Now that link doesnt seem to exist. That was my reason for writing, but your rocking piece on Harold Cruse took me off point. Glad it did. BUT REACTIVATE THAT LINK ON WILLIE LYNCH! Peace.
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