ABSTRACT
Whenever Harold Cruse is mentioned I immediately think of the encounter I had with a friend who saw me reading a copy of Cruse’s book, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. The friend who had very close ties with the Communist Party sneered and asked me why I was reading that book. Momentarily caught off guard by the question, I hesitantly asked him whether he had read the book. No, he quickly snapped, “It’s nothing but an anti-Communist hatchet job.” This sounded like a well-rehearsed line that he had heard somebody else say and dutifully repeated. I asked him how could he be so hostile to a book he hadn’t read. He didn’t answer, but I soon discovered why.
