Harold Cruse

Vincent W. Lloyd is professor and former director of Africana Studies at Villanova University. His recent books include Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination and the coauthored Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons. His writing has appeared in Commonweal, The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Plough, and other publications.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Beginnings Chapter 2. Becoming a Critic: New York CityChapter 3. Becoming a Writer: New York CityChapter 4. Becoming a Teacher: Ann ArborChapter 5. Becoming an Elder: Ann ArborEpilogueRegarding Resources and MethodsNotesAcknowledgementsIndex

“A delightfully intimate scholarly encounter with the life and legacy of Harold Cruse, one of the foremost contributors to the discipline of Black Studies.”—Lawrence Jackson, Johns Hopkins University“A beautifully written and impressively sophisticated portrait of a true intellectual whose name and writings should be known by everyone who imagines they know 20th century African American history.”—David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Bearing the Cross“Lloyd’s sympathetic portrait of Cruse perfectly captures the colleague I once knew: brilliant, stubborn, warm, irascible, unfiltered, enigmatic, sad, and hilarious. As contemporary Black intellectuals face what feels like an existential crisis, Harold Cruse could not be timelier.”— Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams