James Miller & Jerry G. Watts 
Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Reconsidered 
A Retrospective

Thirty-five years after its initial publication, Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual remains a foundational work in Afro-American Studies and American Cultural Studies. The essays contained in The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Reconsidered are, collectively, a testimony to the continuing significance of this polemical call to arms for black intellectuals. Each scholar featured in this book has chosen to discuss specific arguments made by Cruse. While some have utilized Cruse’s arguments to launch broader discussions of various issues pertaining to Afro-American intellectuals, and others have contributed discussions on intellectual issues completely ignored by Cruse, all hope to pay homage to a thinker worthy of continual reconsideration.