Black Representationalism Cruse Summary

Cruse opens the text with then contemporarily profound ideals concerning the ‘new’ Negro intellectual class that emerged out of the late 1950s and 1960s. In his discussion around the Negro spokesperson, I found myself considering the idea of Black representationalism—the avant-garde context of Cruse’s ‘spokesperson.’ His depiction of true America were bone-chilling as he analyzes the country in its totality in efforts to capitalize on the Negro’s function within in. Cruse speaks very highly of Harlem. At times, his thoughts seems to be guided through a bias, but as he spoke more of the section within the Manhattan borough, I conjured up the image of the utopia described. Cruse provides the vision for group Black economics, the vision of unity. Emerging in between the high-rises and co-ops of Harlem is a world separate from that of America. I was able to dissolve the thoughts of biases from Cruse as I noted several cases in which he, too, spoke of Harlem’s downfalls. His personal anecdotes provides the reader with full truths that employ historical contexts throughout the novel. Cruse uses his narrative of the city’s highs and lows to articulate the reality of double consciousness and introduces what
Cruse pays homage to the artistry of early Harlem while detailing the social climate of the time. Cruse believed severely in his culture and power in which it holds. Yet, his focus on Harlem, though done much justice, does not give the proper representation of a secular Black experience, let alone an American one. The time period discussed was the bulk of the shift in America from Negro to Colored to Black from border to border. Cruse was firm in his stance against intergrationalist but lacking in cultural inclusion. He includes every Negro writer, musician and artist that feet ever graced Harlem, and by and far, their stories deserve praise, but so do our other leaders and ground shakers of the Black early