Between Revolution and the Racial Ghetto
Harold Cruse and Harry Haywood Debate Class Struggle and the ‘Negro Question’, 1962–8
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Cedric Johnson in
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This article revisits an historic exchange between two black ex-communists, Harold Cruse and Harry Haywood, a debate that prefigured many of the central contradictions of the black-power era. Their exchange followed Cruse’s influential 1962 essay for Studies on the Left, ‘Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American’, which declared that the American Negro was a ‘subject of domestic colonialism’. Written against the prevailing liberal integrationist commitments of the civil-rights movement, his essay called for black economic and political independence, and inspired many of the younger activists who would give birth to the black-power movement. In a series of essays for the Bay Area black radical journal Soulbook, Haywood criticised Cruse’s mishandling of class politics among blacks, and his retreat from anti-capitalism. This forgotten episode is important on its own terms, for what it says about the character and limitations of left-political thinking during the sixties, and equally for understanding and contesting those commonsensical notions of African-American public life in our times which too often remain rooted in the vanished social context and political realities of the twentieth-century racial ghetto.
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1
Cruse 2009c, pp. 84–5.
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3
Gosse 2004, p. 38. For more insight into Cruse’s life before the publication of The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, see also Cruse 2009b; Cruse 2002b.
-
4
Gosse 2004, p. 106.
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5
Davis 2001.
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6
Gosse 1998, p. 107.
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7
Davis 2001; Gosse 1998, pp. 102–6.
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8
Jackson 2011, p. 303.
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9
Cruse 2009a, p. 8.
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10
Cruse 2009d; Clarke 1961b.
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11
Cruse 2009d, p. 73.
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12
Cruse 2002c; Cruse 1967, pp. 356–7; see also Jones 1966; Clarke 1961a; Gosse 1993; Young 2001.
-
13
Cruse 2002c, p. 11.
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14
Cruse 2009c, p. 75.
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15
Cruse 2009c, pp. 74–5.
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17
Cruse 2009e, p. 143.
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18
Lichtenstein 2002, p. 99.
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19
Cruse 2009c, p. 96.
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20
Bell 1961; Johnson 2011.
-
21
Cruse 2009c, pp. 75–6.
-
22
Cruse 2009c, p. 76.
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24
Cruse 2009c, p. 77.
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25
Cruse 2009c, p. 76.
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27
Cruse 2009c, p. 90.
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28
Cruse 2009c, p. 91.
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30
Cruse 2009c, p. 94.
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31
Black Panthers 1970, pp. 3–4.
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32
Bloom and Martin 2013, pp. 22–3.
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34
Cruse 2009a, p. 19.
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35
Cruse 2009c, p. 78.
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38
Haywood 1978a, pp. 1–4, 81–8.
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39
Haywood 1978a, p. 25.
-
40
Makalani 2011, pp. 45–69.
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41
Haywood 1978a, p. 109; see also Storch 2009.
-
42
Haywood 1978a, pp. 148–75; Carew 2010, pp. 27–48.
-
43
Klehr and Tompson 1989, p. 354. See also Record 1951; Solomon 1998, pp. 68–91; Berland 1999–2000; Berland 2000.
-
44
Klehr and Tompson 1989, p. 358.
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45
Quoted in Klehr and Tompson 1989, p. 356; see also Haywood 1978a, pp. 124–8.
-
46
Haywood 1978a, p. 137.
-
47
Lenin 1991, p. 286.
-
48
Haywood 1978a, p. 119.
-
49
Haywood 1978a, pp. 218–22.
-
50
Quoted in Klehr and Tompson 1989, p. 359.
-
51
Haywood 1976.
-
52
Haywood 1978a, p. 331.
-
53
Haywood 1976, p. 70.
-
55
Hirsch 1998.
-
57
Johnson 1991.
-
58
Haywood 1966.
-
59
Haywood 1966, p. 71.
-
61
Haywood 1966, p. 72.
-
62
Haywood 1966, p. 73.
-
66
Gosse 2004, p. 35.
-
69
Cruse 1967, p. 8.
-
70
Cruse 1967, p. 64.
-
71
Haywood 1978a, p. 637.
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74
Cleaver 1967.
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76
Johnson 2007, pp. 43–4.
-
77
Gosse 1998, p. 115.
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78
Smith 2012.
-
79
See Reed 2015a and 2015b.
-
80
Cruse 2009c, p. 96.
-
81
Wacquant 2008 and 2010.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
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| Abstract Views | 1888 | 441 | 24 |
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Between Revolution and the Racial Ghetto
Harold Cruse and Harry Haywood Debate Class Struggle and the ‘Negro Question’, 1962–8
In: Historical MaterialismSearch for other papers by Cedric Johnson in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
This article revisits an historic exchange between two black ex-communists, Harold Cruse and Harry Haywood, a debate that prefigured many of the central contradictions of the black-power era. Their exchange followed Cruse’s influential 1962 essay for Studies on the Left, ‘Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American’, which declared that the American Negro was a ‘subject of domestic colonialism’. Written against the prevailing liberal integrationist commitments of the civil-rights movement, his essay called for black economic and political independence, and inspired many of the younger activists who would give birth to the black-power movement. In a series of essays for the Bay Area black radical journal Soulbook, Haywood criticised Cruse’s mishandling of class politics among blacks, and his retreat from anti-capitalism. This forgotten episode is important on its own terms, for what it says about the character and limitations of left-political thinking during the sixties, and equally for understanding and contesting those commonsensical notions of African-American public life in our times which too often remain rooted in the vanished social context and political realities of the twentieth-century racial ghetto.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1888 | 441 | 24 |
| Full Text Views | 348 | 6 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 277 | 17 | 0 |
