William E. Cross Jr. facts for kids

William E. Cross Jr. (1940 – December 5, 2024) was a very important thinker and researcher. He studied how people develop their ethnic identity, especially how Black people form their identity.

He is most famous for his idea called the nigrescence model. He first wrote about this in 1971. Later, he published a book called Shades of Black in 1991. Cross's model built on the work of other Black psychologists. It created a strong base for understanding racial and ethnic identity. His ideas helped explain how individuals and groups can change society. Throughout his career, Cross focused on racial identity. He also looked at how Western ideas sometimes negatively affected the psychology of Black Americans. He believed in the need for "psychological liberation" for people facing unfair treatment.

About William E. Cross Jr.

Bill Cross was born in Evanston, Illinois. His parents were Bill and Margaret Cross. He went to McCosh Elementary School in Chicago. In 1959, he graduated from Evanston Township High School (ETHS). Bill was the only one of his siblings to go to college.

College Years and Early Ideas

Cross earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Denver in 1963. While there, he was president of his fraternity, Pi Lambda Phi. He met Badi Foster, who became his lifelong friend and mentor. During this time, Cross thought deeply about his religious beliefs. He questioned why bad things like slavery and the Holocaust happened. These thoughts later influenced his work.

He also studied clinical psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Even though he didn't finish his master's degree, what he learned about therapy stages helped his later work. The 1960s were a time of big change. There was a rise in Black nationalism and the Black Power Movement. This period encouraged Black professionals to challenge White-dominated fields. In 1968, the Association of Black Psychologists (ABP) was founded. Its members felt they were "Black people first and psychologists second."

The Black Consciousness Movement

A major event for Cross was the death of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. After this, Cross became deeply involved in the Black Consciousness Movement. This movement greatly influenced his nigrescence theory. This theory explained how different identities form and change during social movements.

During the Vietnam War, Cross became the Director of West Side Service Center (WSSC) in Evanston, Illinois. With the Black Power Movement strong, Cross created programs for Evanston's youth. He regularly attended meetings of the OBAC (Organization of Black American Culture). Cross learned the importance of cultural awareness, not just race awareness, at these meetings. This idea became key to his model of race and cultural identity. He also learned about the "conversion process" from Jimmy Reid. Reid organized a local Black Panther group. Cross saw that Black identity change happened across all social classes. He realized that identity must be supported by real-life improvements. Otherwise, people might fall back into just trying to survive. Cross felt his role at WSSC matched the Immersion-Emersion stage of his model.

Princeton and Early Publications

In 1969, Cross became an assistant to the Chair of Afro-American Studies at Princeton University. His friend Badi Foster helped him connect psychology with African American Studies. Foster and his Princeton colleagues encouraged Cross to write about his ideas. They believed there was a process Black men and women went through. This process included stages of anger, which were often shown in the media. They thought these stages were temporary, not fixed identities.

While at Princeton, Cross met Dawn Monique Jackson. She was Princeton's Assistant Director of Admissions. They later married. They faced challenges early in their marriage but later reunited. They have been married for 40 years and have one daughter, Tuere Binta Cross. Tuere is now a social worker in Denver.

At Princeton, Cross also met William S. Hall, a well-known Black psychologist. Hall helped Cross find ways to test his model scientifically. The questions they created for an experiment later influenced the first version of the Racial Identity Attitude Scale (RIAS). Cross's paper, "The Negro-to-Black Conversion Experience: Toward a Psychology of Black Liberation," was published in 1971. In 1972, Bill Hall published the results of his study, which became known as the Hall-Cross Model. Cross finished his doctoral studies in psychology at Princeton University in 1976.

Cornell University and Shades of Black

After Princeton, Cross became a professor at Cornell University in 1973. He taught Black studies and psychology. He started as a "social experimental psychologist" but left 21 years later as a "cultural psychologist." Cross explained that his work as a cultural psychologist looked at how culture, history, and money shape human development. He focused on Black identity development.

In 1991, Cross published Shades of Black. This book was inspired by his time at Cornell's Africana Center. Henry Louis Gates Jr. encouraged him to write it. Robert L. Harris introduced him to Janet M. Francendese, an editor. Cross said this book aimed to change Black psychology. He wanted to move it away from ideas of self-hatred. He wanted to show that Black identity is not just one thing. It cannot be described as a single "type." There is no single definition of what it means to be Black. Through this work, Cross found "major shortcomings" in his first Nigrescence Model. So, the second part of Shades of Black included a new version of his 1971 model.

Later Career and Retirement

In 1994, Cross left Cornell for Pennsylvania State University. There, a student named Peony Fhagen-Smith helped him expand his ideas to cover a person's whole life. More recently, his own daughter, Tuere Cross, has continued this research. At Penn State, Cross created a research group. They tested and proved the Cross-Racial-Identity-Scale (CRIS). This scale is now widely used to measure identity.

Cross left Penn State in 2000. He joined the Social Personality Psychology Program at the City University of New York (CUNY). In 2008, CUNY gave him "emeritus" status. This means he could keep helping doctoral students.

Cross briefly lived in Henderson, Nevada. He worked as a Counselor in Education at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas. After retiring, Cross and his wife moved to Colorado. But Cross didn't stay retired for long. He became the Coordinator for the Higher Education Program at the University of Denver. He also served as President-Elect of Division 45 of the American Psychological Association. This group studies ethnic minority issues. Cross worked to encourage research and apply psychology to these issues. He focused on topics like the large number of people of color in prison and the experiences of LGBT people of color. Cross felt lucky for the life he lived. He was happy to be reunited with his daughter in Denver. He and his daughter have even written two works together.

Dr. Cross passed away on December 5, 2024, in Denver, Colorado.

The Nigrescence Model (1971)

Cross described how Black identity changes through a five-stage theory. He called this theory Nigrescence. This word means "the process of becoming Black." The five stages are:

• Pre-encounter
• Encounter
• Immersion/Emersion
• Internalization
• Internalization-Commitment

Pre-encounter Stage

The pre-encounter stage describes a person's identity before they have a key experience. In this stage, a person might not be fully aware of their race. They might not understand the social effects that come with it. Cross said that people of color are often taught to see the world without focusing on race. So, they might resist new information that challenges this view.

Encounter Stage

In the encounter stage, people have an experience that suddenly makes them aware of race. This is often an "awakening" to racial consciousness. This experience makes them open to a new way of seeing the world, where race is important. People can often remember the first time they were treated differently because of their skin color.

Immersion/Emersion Stage

In the third stage, immersion-emersion, a person acts like they have "just discovered Blackness." They often try hard to "prove that one is Black." They feel proud of their Blackness and might speak negatively about White culture. They become more involved with people from their own ethnic group. They might avoid people from other groups. This stage often involves fully diving into Black culture. Later, they come out of the simple, sometimes angry, early part of this stage. Their strong emotional reaction to the encounter calms down. This "psychological defensiveness" is replaced by an "openness" that allows for deeper thinking.

Internalization Stage

The internalization stage is when a person feels comfortable rejoining society. They have a strong sense of their own racial identity. This allows them to build relationships with people from other racial groups. In this stage, they start to make sense of their old worldview and their new racial worldview. Before this stage, a person might feel unsure about their identity. For example, a Black person might worry if they are "Black enough." This worry can lead to rejecting other racial groups. It can also lead to a very strict idea of what it means to be Black. But in this stage, they move towards a positive view of Black ideas and actions.

Internalization-Commitment Stage

The final stage, internalization-commitment, means finding a balance. A person is comfortable with their own racial identity and with the identities of others. This stage shows the difference between people who accept their new identity but stop working for social change, and those who continue to work for social change. To fully reach this stage, a person must truly live their new identity. They must also take part in activities that promote fairness and justice for their group.

Throughout life, people might go back to different stages. This is not going backward. It is often part of a bigger process of learning new things. It helps them rethink ideas from a more mature point of view.

Shades of Black (1991)

In Shades of Black, published in 1991, Cross challenged two big ideas. First, he argued that self-hatred was not the main idea in Black identity. Second, he showed that you cannot describe Black identity as one single, predictable thing. He reviewed many writings on Black identity from 1936 to 1967. He found that authors often made two mistakes. They made conclusions about adult identity based on studies of young children. Also, they used tests that measured social attitudes but said they were measuring personality traits like self-esteem.

Shades of Black highlighted important ideas about mental health and strength. Researchers often ignored these. They were too busy trying to prove that Black people had problems. This book was key in changing how psychology looked at Black people. It moved the focus from "Black pathology" (problems) to a more "normal and positive" Black psychology. It did this with logical and proven arguments.

This book also explored the Black Power Movement. It looked at how identities changed during this social movement. Cross showed how Black working and middle-class families had always shown strong mental health. They had strong personal qualities that helped them succeed. They kept positive self-images even during political and social struggles. He also showed that there are many different ways of thinking and seeing oneself. This means there are endless paths to happiness. It proved that you cannot have one single definition of what it means to be Black. He even suggested that for some Black people, their racial identity is not very important in their daily lives. The later part of Shades of Black updated Cross's original Nigrescence Model from 1971. He found several weaknesses in his first model while writing this book. He believed that relying too much on just theory or just research could give an incomplete picture.

Validating the Cross Racial Identity Scale (2002)

In 2002, Cross and his colleagues confirmed that the Cross Racial Identity Scale (CRIS) was valid. This scale was first described in 2000. They did two studies with African American college students. The studies showed that the CRIS was very reliable and valid. This means it consistently measures what it's supposed to measure. The CRIS scores seemed to be connected to self-esteem. They were not just about trying to look good or about personality traits.

Nigrescence and Ego Identity Development (1996)

This study looked at Cross's Black identity development model across a person's whole life. It compared the Nigrescence model with Erik Erikson's (1968) model of adolescent development. They found that a difference was needed between the two. This is because there was some overlap in the groups of people the models described. Cross and Fhagen-Smith decided that the key difference was how central race was to a person's identity. People who made their race very important to who they are might be better described by the Nigrescence model. Those who did not focus on ethnicity might be better described by Erikson's model. This paper showed the link between Nigrescence and how a person's self-concept develops. It also suggested that Nigrescence could begin as early as adolescence. Or it could start after a person's basic adult identity has formed.

Awards and Recognition

William E. Cross Jr. received the 2009 Annual Social Justice Action Award. This award came from Teachers College, Columbia University. Georgia Southern University created the Dr. William Cross Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series. This is part of their yearly conference on Cross-Cultural Issues in Counseling and Education.

He was the 2014 President of American Psychological Association's Division 45. This group is the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. He was also a CUNY Professor Emeritus. He was also a Morgridge College of Education Change Agent.

Published Works

• The Negro to Black Conversion Experience (1971)
• The Thomas and Cross Models of Psychological Nigrescence: A Review (1978)
• The Negro-to-Black conversion experience: An empirical analysis (1979)
• Shades of Black : diversity in African-American identity (1991)
• The stages of Black identity development: Nigrescence models (1991)
• The psychology of Nigrescence: Revising the Cross model (1995)
• Nigrescence and ego identity development: Accounting for differential Black identity patterns (1996)
• The everyday functions of African American identity (1998)
• African American identity development across the lifespan: Educational implications (1999)
• Encountering nigrescence (2001)
• Tracing the Historical Origins of Youth Delinquency & Violence: Myths and Realities about Black Culture (2003)