Cooper Union forum; 4; Fall 1970

From the Great Hall of the Cooper Union in New York City. National Educational radio presents a lecture entitled The crisis of the negro intellectual. This lecture was recorded for broadcast by station WNYC. Now to introduce the speaker. Here is the chairman of the Cooper Union forum series Dr. Johnson IIf Erick Schonfeld. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome welcome. You know for. Lighter that you could be here this evening and so on. Nice to see you again the co-host of Mike we have a very fascinating and very important subject to discuss. This particular discussion has to do with the crisis of the intellectual. And you know speaker is heard Cruz who just happens to be director of the Afro-American the student program at the University of Michigan. And that's obviously I think I was so delighted that he could make it here

tonight to talk with us about this. Very exciting and interesting problem. I'll just give you one. Minute about most cruel. Comes from Virginia and New York City. United States Army World War 2. Oh. You'll feel ever experiencing something with criticism but a creative writing film that. He contributed articles to important magazine. And his book The crisis of the negro intellectual published in 1967 wars one of the more exciting things that has come out and his second book as a driver of a valiant or revolution. Where the very delighted that it come from an arbor. They

are exciting to talk to us and here at the Cooper Union Mr. Pearl. Thank you Mr. Fairchild. Friends. Of. My native city of New York. In which I no longer reside. Because of a certain notoriety. Attached to me as a result of the publication of a book or two. I have been spirited away. From the city which like you I have always called my own. But that is the fate that one. Has to expect one becomes. I won't be famous but notorious. For having said some rather provocative. Things

about the black and white situation in the United States. Before I discuss this topic the crisis and they're going to elect me. I like to remind you of a few facts. About our native city. I'm disappointed in the fact that this is only the second time. Since this book was published. That I had been invited to speak at a public forum in my own city. I think this is unethical in more ways than one. The book was published in November 1967. And I repeat I'm a New Yorker. Yet invited to speak only twice in two years. Summer publications in New York have avoided mentioning or reviewing this book. Both black

publications and white publications. The mass media in New York have definitely been banned off of this book. There's no question about it. I was interviewed once on the radio. On the. Great program. Never interviewed once in New York on television. In two years none of them here at the University of New York. Took notice of me or the book until 1969. However there are 67 or 68. I spoke to University Chicago Yale Princeton Brown Boston Illinois Ohio Indiana. And countless others. Actually I'm better known outside of New York. My native city

than I am in New York. I think that's. Significant in more ways than one. Perhaps it's because in my book. I did. Devote a lot of pages. To a criticism of the mass media. Perhaps I took offense at that I don't know. However. For you the audience I suppose should be asking the question. What are my reasons for writing such a controversial book. What the controversy intended. Assuming you've read the book that is. What I hope to achieve by writing such a book. Well.

My first objective was. Clarification of confusion. I think I achieves something in the way of pacification of issues. It wasn't that I suffered a certain amount of vilification which I expected. I was ostracized in certain places. I was also expected. I was condemned them out of places. But also I don't have someone I measure of praise and acclaim. For the book that balances the score. Well the book was first out of me. As a result of circumstances. That I experienced between the years of 1946 and 1960. Most of the experiences of the radical Left movement.

The book was not a book that I wanted to write. All of a piece. I never planned this book. Over a number of years. It was written in three years. Actually that is three years of actual work. But many years of experience and research went into it. Research that I went reached back. Got together and threw into this. Tome. Often in a rather haphazard and disorganized. Fashion I was aided tremendously by having had a skill or editor. I preferred articles. I saw myself going on a long series of articles. On these issues running over a long period of time. Such magazines as liberator and the nation digest Republic and so on so on and so on I had no

ambitions of the scope. That is at the outset. But no one is a black radical when one is involved in the myriad aspects of the radical movement that we knew as a radical movement of New York. One discovers many things about blacks in the BB whites about the committed blacks in the committed white. We find that they are. Prone to many weaknesses brought about. By the conditions in this country. We discover intellectual weaknesses weaknesses letter Tauriel style. Small magazines financial disabilities lack of audience. You find one of the first just tools of people who are trying to establish new

norms new standards and new ways of thinking. Without having the either the experience of the background or they support. As a result radical movements start to collapse. Individuals start off attempting to do great things before by the wayside. I discovered in this process. The accumulated weaknesses in the problems of black intellectuals and the fine intellectual. These problems cannot be dealt with I discovered in a few articles. Or even a series of articles. The more I want to duck these questions the more one discovers. How vast and how profound these questions really are. They don't respond to superficial treatment is right discovered.

They discuss the black intellectual. I'm using the word black now. The baby and keeping with the times. I title my book the Negril intellectual because at the time I wrote this book. I was not involved in a semantic debate about the virtues of the word. Black over an egg roll and so forth. I was more concerned with substandard issues not titles or names. But I'm using the word black at this time. Because I had to go through a process of development. The black and white intellectuals in the society both. You know are of historical derivation. Many people are prone to view the problems. Or personalities of intellectuals. Only in terms of contemporary troubles his current

styles the quality of the intellectuals present. When guys moan. This is especially true of Beit intellectuals are intellectuals the class. Has long been identified as a member of an ongoing trend. Some of the creation of the voice. The interpreter the American intellectual tradition. The black intellectual as intellectual is however I was. Hoping the invisible man. With the call attention to himself by declaring Nobody knows my name. I am however a native son. So here are a few notes. That are written in the manner of advertisements for myself. The black intellectual although a

native son was indeed a man from another country. Another world another dimension people doubt it is even that even existed. Now since both intellectuals white and black. Have problems. My problem then was the find a way of identifying the historical roots. Of a very present issue. The black and white confrontation. By identifying the personality of the class and. The intellectual classes. Who are most vividly and vocally and critically reflect the strains in the stress and. Then violence and the imperative behind the black and white confrontation that was my problem. Is the intellectuals who chart record the range and the scope. The

depth and the impact of the issues of their day. That was my contention that. As the 60s moved forward. As our most notable decade of crises crises in black and white. It became clear that particular public lacked a basic knowledge. Of two important aspects. In this black development. One they were ignorant of the origin. The root the star because of the black vote. In addition there were also ignorant of the fortunes and misfortunes of the intellectual class of black leaders spokesman professionals writers artists educated etc.. Whose personal careers whose actual histories in fact. Were involved in TWINE.

In those moviestar because most of the black vote. Only then can I begin to deal with the contemporary scene in the 1960s. I had to go back and survey. The origins of the black intellectuals as a class. In order to clarify the root issues of the black revolt. Because only then who are the new black intellectual class. The new spokesman. That they be dealt with in any definitive way. By the new intellectual class the new spokesman I mean the Baldwins. Leroy Jones is. The Roy innocence. The frog because sex. And so on and so on and so on. These are the new spokesman with a new style. The crisis of this class and they go intellectual. If a star

but Americans are not historical in Outlook. Unfortunately. This creates a problem. A very critical problem. You create difficulties in defining. The very problem that obsesses all of us. We have somehow a historical. In our approach. The black problem had never been defined in America. Has been reacted to defensive or offensive armor the rest of the way. But to define the problem means one have to become extremely critical often caustically critical. And people especially black people. Don't like. To be caustically criticize. They're not used to it. What's going to be criticized by blacks.

As I did in the crisis especially white intellectuals. However my career since the end the World War 2. Has been a running argument. With both blacks and whites. Over the issues relevant to the black politics as independent politics and there are black and white into racial politics. These are two sides of the same coin so to speak and my involvement had to do. With the way in which these two approaches. To black and white reality were pursued. If you read this book of mine you'll see a running account. For most of the things that I experience. This is not the whole story of course. I left out many crucial items

of interest which had to be left out. Nevertheless I think that. In the body of this book. I chart my own personal development and development of many of the people that I mention in this book by the government again the course of the essay in the communist radical left. And. In the process of writing this book one deals with ideas in the series and approaches. And I discovered. That. One begins to answer questions to oneself. Once one begins to put. Certain questions down on paper. Writing is like having an argument with oneself. Writing is like saying to one's self. What do you really think about what you're saying.

Writing resolves. Individual. Question. Writing. Poses questions to oneself. And in the process of finishing a piece of writing. One has answered a question or several questions. From eyes for oneself. This accounts for the length of this book. For those of you have read it. Because in the process of dealing with a set of questions that have bothered me for years. Answering them raises other questions and I was pushed on. The limits. Of my intellectual scope to the point where I said work from here and there are no hope no. Holds barred. When I say go the whole hog here.

And lash out. And attack the problem. The way I've never been attacked before. I can say that the things I've said in this group although they have riled many people. I've heard the same things said. By the same people. They don't want these things said in public. This was the problem. There very many blacks and very coy about this very shy of having their innermost secrets buried in the glare of public opinion. Right I think that is a process of growing up. As a fan of growing up. And one can discuss.

Intimate questions in public particularly questions which should become public issues. And I think that every issue of the black world today and the white. The hidden issues. The intimate issues. Of the fact. The issues of relationship between the races should become. Public issues. In the home of the left wing movement or the left wing movement of Harlem the 1940s. I learned how to bear publications. I learned how the bare personal issues. I began to read very closely at the black condition in the black community. I began to weep at the intimate ways in which white. Dealt with black issues.

In the black community. I began to look at the way blacks responded to the way whites. Dealt with issues. In the black community. Whereas before I would not have questioned. Many styles of integration relationships. That I've seen before I've seen these in the NAACP and the Urban League and all the interracial optimisations act acted in and around the black community I never question. Their mode of involvement. And there began to observer in the black community. That a certain kind of going to racialism was not conducive to what I saw as a necessary rose on political and cultural autonomy in the black community.

And I began to observe how. The collaboration between black and white. Checked. And subverted. Black Autonomy. Both in the political and the cultural sphere of life. When I saw this. I began to blame black intellectuals for the state of affairs. I began to say. That. If this. Sort of modus operandi between black and white has developed in the black community. It means that the black and the doctor would have been playing a subordinate role. In interracial affair. But once having said this it became a heresy. To say

this. In the late 1940s. And heretical statements. Because they had been assume for many years in all kinds a racial uplift optimizations. That any kind of black and white collaboration was a good thing because after all then that a racist society. The fact that you can get whites to work with blacks is a good thing. Well I might've been good. Up to World War 1 maybe World War 2. I want to argue that question. All I can say is that. With the advent of World War Two. Things The World Order began to change radically. As

a consequence became evident to me that interracial would have to change in the United States. Also. A new sense of identity racial identity was on the rise. The world over. As a result of this the only way from black and white relations native to the black community scene had to go by the board. I was one of the first of the young generation in the 40s to see this. And one of the first of that generation to begin the fight against the old ways of black and white collaboration. I began this fight in the Harlem left. But just fighting the issue forced me to consider.

What are the causes of this dark because of this. Kind of arrangement between black and white. It is nearly one of. Majority versus minority. It is that but it's more than that. It's a certain kind of intellectual conditioning that has gone on here in this country for too many years. Forcing the black intellectuals to play what I call sub cultural politics subordinate politics. They become a way of life with him yet except the benign hand-me-down and liberal a liberal system. And I said to myself the black intellectual is ever going to come into

his home. Let me share that. This liberal Brandon Avery kind of arrangement where it took more than just railing against it. Today it takes more than just railing against racism white racism has been the style in the black nationalist trend of the Black Power trend verbalizing. The ill effects of white racism and all of that. It takes more than that. Everybody today knows that America is a racist society. This is not become old hat. It's a fact. So what is. The problem is what do we do about it. Beyond. Raven rant and white racism.

It means that the black intellectual and white intellectual or the young doing soul searching. They've got to begin to really examine the nature of this society and how it is structured. You got to stop breast beating. And responding the guilt complexes and so forth over their racist attitude. And they then objectively to deal. With. Structural flaws. In their society. And I think the black intellect. Must take the lead in this. I've become convinced now. 1970

that unless the black intellectual keeps prodding the right intellectual on this issue nothing is going to happen. In this society. But beginning with Nixon's administration we're going to drift. And drift farther and farther and farther. To the right. And we're in that world the scryer by George Orwell. 1984. That's the drift that I see happening. However to rouse intellectual class. Out of apathy and confusion and doubt. Mean the Brocken that you must be equipped himself.

And this is the problem here. The bulk of the luck to work has to refurbish his own mind. By digging back into his past. Really is reexamining the development. That he has come through. At the same time taking it upon himself. To reexamine the developments of the quite intellectual. Also. Because the two these two classes do in many respects complement each other in terms of their responses to the American condition. Most black intellectuals are products. Of institutions universities schools and whatnot. Who gets occasional substance.

Are the creations of white intellectual traditions. This is true even in black universities and black color. But no matter. What side of the racial educational fence of blacks books. Are products whether white schools or black who. Are both of them. And here he was with a predominately white intellectual academic tradition. Blacks who want to imitate whites whom. As a result of the education really becomes a misnomer here. Because the and that true nation whether the blacks who went to high school. As in all of the piece it means very little when I mean that and

usually get more indoctrination you do and how or what manner of this. But the same indoctrination. The blood in the bathroom or the free himself from Incubus this kind. Of. Intellectual academic development. Most established new kinds of norms. Educational norms. Educational substance. That can be begin to make him to deal with. The American reality in another way. And this is a difficult task. At the movement in the 60s progresses and progress toward the 70s we noted. The rise of the demand for black studies.

Programs on the part of the new black intellectuals. The new student movement. And we ask ourselves. What gave rise to these demands all of a sudden. Actually. That is a part of the ongoing black intellectual development. The New Black generation begins to see the flaws in the thinking of the old black intellectual generation and their own intuitive attempts to correct this. They raised the problem of black studies programs. But then they call on the older generation black intellectuals for the most part to man these programs.

And here we see the connection being made between the new black intellectual class the new student groups and the old. Here we see most vividly the clash of values. I discussed black studies programs. In my book. I think one of these developments that was beyond the scope of my book. When I was doing was almost foreshadowing in a sense. The advent of black studies programs because several black student have said to me that they look upon this book as a textbook. In the sense that you begin to tell them things that they could not have found out about. In the normal textbooks. So the university campuses.

So in a sense I was preparing myself as a black intellectual of the other generation. To deal positively and definitively with the new black intellectual trends. By virtue ever having written this book. And I tell them in this book. All about the only the harm. And the deafening movement home I discussed. The rise of Harlem as a leading black community. I discussed problems in this book. There are intellectual traditions in America. That struck under the bed. And left there. Part of the crucial American development.

Pertaining to groups. Ethnic groups. And training pertaining to blacks. Attending to immigrants pertaining to slavery post slavery pertaining to movements native to the black development which is part of a black intellectuals heritage. But which. Academic standards do not include. This is the importance I think of this book. I thought it was more my responsibility. To put some of these facts down in print. Because of the gap. Between the young. And the old.

Is I'm running for example for me to hear young people young black people. Activists young idealists. People raring to go to get out. And confront the issues. And I was so badly equipped to do so. This is all normal. Only now in 1970. Has the Black moved understood this. I'm glad I wrote the book. Because I have something some means of discussing. Past issues. With them. I can talk about. How black intellectuals of the 20s how they function.

How collective the 30. Function how they function in the 40s. And early 50s. And I'm able to explain vividly. To the current generation that what they are doing in assigning today. Was. Said and done before. By some other level. And that they are actually inheriting was. I one finished business. Unfinished business of the 20s and the 30s. And the 40s. You look upon a home today as a decrepit community and so it is.

But they ought to know and they must know the true history of the Harlem community. Because there is where. The more 20th century black intellectual trend began. As Harlem developed into a black community so that the first. Noticeable black intellectual development. Occurred. Could a present a generation have to know they have to know what happened. In Harlem what happened in Chicago or what happened in the Troy. What happened in Boston or. What happened in that matter and so forth. They have to know. What

caused the great migrations of blacks. Out of the South. Into these northern cities. What motivated those migration. They must know these things. What motivated all of the best brains. Out of the black group in the south. To leave the South. And come to these northern cities leaving the South intellectually impoverished. This is what happened. This is part of the black intellectual development. What we would like to is do once they got. In these northern cities what do they achieve. Why is it that the achieved anything in the 20s. And the 30s and the 40s. Why are the black community today in such a bad state. This

integration and the Generation Why is this. That too is part of the black intellectual development. We have to explain these things. The right intellectuals understand this ourself. Because most of our intellectuals of our time. Most of them. A lot of them that is came out have ethnic communities. And ethnic groups. That made the grade. Rose up out of the depths of 1930 poverty through World War 2. And now enjoying. A higher. Income.

And greater prestige. The current generation of black intellectuals cannot escape the heritage. Of up. He had no right. And city on the decline but a classic. Black and White had to be made to understand the implications of this kind of development in this society. I was blocked in the letter with my intellect you have to understand the problems of cultural leadership. And issue that has been lost. In the cloudy past of group development in this society.

What I mean by cultural leadership is this. Is the big question today. A question to which most whites for example have not addressed themselves. Cultural leadership is a leadership. That is a responsibility of intellectuals. Who by their education and their training and their sense abilities. Understand or should understand clearly. What ails people. That stance intellectual growth of people. What is wrong with the educational processes

that create people who can read educational process theories. That are alien to the end to the personal psychology instincts of people. These are responsibilities of intellectual cultural leadership is the thing required today by both blacks and whites. Because between the races. There is a great cultural impasse. That has occurred here. The two groups don't understand each other. This impasse has come about as a side effect.

Of a flawed intellectual development on the parts of blacks and whites. If blacks had been induced by this conditional system to accept. As paramount. White balance. In everything. The end result is going to be. That other kinds of values. Are left languishing and we have today the cultural impasse. A very deep and profound thing. Here in universities for example. Certain. Academic mine. If you used to understand.

The validity of a black studies program for example. Or where in the communities are the kinds of mind educational minds refuse to admit. That educational systems have failed to satisfy. The psychological or the identity imperatives. Of people different from them. This is part of intellectual development of our society. Yes so many issues are relevant to the problem of the black intellectual. When I take my books like this to clarify them. That's how profound.

This question is. We've only scratched the surface here. The black movement today at this moment. The young leadership of the black movement has said. The 1960s thrust of the black movement run out. Of. What are we going to do in the 1970s. This is the question being asked today. Actually what happened in the 60s was this. All that happened really. Amidst the clamor and the demonstrations and the uprisings. Was that the problem was only being aired. For the public. The public are seeing for the first time the results. Of a

long standing intellectual defense. Peculiar to America. In terms of race relations. They saw the questions aired and posed. Not solutions but questions. About our society. Many people many young people were involved. With a great enthusiasm frustum to leadership of these movements. They were going to reach the millennium. In the 1960s. They saw a revolution around the corner. They were hardly what high hopes. On the part of young blacks and young whites. But they didn't understand was that they were only airing a problem.

Dredging up issues for people to examine. And to say well yes that is the problem. And that is the problem. And this is a problem we didn't know that before. Now we know it. That was the 60s. In my book I try to say in a dozen different ways. If you read me closely. I try to say. These problems have a long long history. They are not new problems. They're all. There is. Oh this nation is. However we've been believing in myths about the American way of life. And the real issues.

Are lying fallow. Becoming more and more and more activated. Under our semi tranquil surface. That's all. The 1960's means meant. You must now really assess. All that we have learned. When I was ready to drop out of the bowels of our experience. You got to. Absorb this now into a new intellectual tradition which will devise we hope ways and means of dealing with these questions. What is the meaning of integration really. What is the meaning of separatism. Really.

Where the meaning of black nationalism really. What these things really mean in terms of the American experience. How do we deal with these issues. None of them are new. And black studies programs we discuss thermo black nationalist movements. And what happened to them. We discussed. Black intellectuals of the 19th century who tried to lead emigration movements out of the United States. Back to Africa. Separatist movements to the west. We dealt with.

Colonization societies set up to deport blacks by the United States. Then we discussed how they came about and what conditions. We discussed. How the Christian religion in the 17th and 18th centuries helped. To Americanize. The black man coming out of Africa. And we discussed. How blacks responded to the Christian religion in the 17th 18th centuries as a way of understanding how they would respond to the Christian doctrines. Today. This is part of a tradition. Left out of the schools. However we describe.

Historically. That M our compact for example is nothing really new. That new in terms of the. Reality of the black experience. Blacks didn't come here as Christians. Some came here as Muslims. Really nothing new here. History repeats itself. In different guises. But it repeats itself. The problem is. That a certain time and certainly a crucial time. Of our nation's development. The intellectuals don't realize. These antecedents and failed to deal with the stark realities. And the issues lying fallow.

And they burst out in an aggravated state as it did in the 60s and people are mystified how did all this come about. Perhaps one can say that. It's because. America is a young nation. We've heard this before. Well we're only 100 hundred years old it said. So what can you expect. A nation formed like this. I have so many disparate groups of people. Coming from here and there. I think we've done pretty well. Some people say.

Well maybe. This is the case. All I can say is. You better hurry and make up for lost time. Because if not we could be the youngest nation. That died. And the dying man deserved death. There's no real need for that. Really. You heard Harold Cruse speaking on the topic the crisis of the negro intellectual. This was one of the 1970 series of lectures recorded at the great hall of the Cooper Union in New York City by station WNYC. The chairman for the Cooper Union was Johnson the Fairchild.

This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.