Talk:Nicky Cruz

Was he really president?

I have quite recently read the swedish edition of The Cross and the Switchblade and according to what I read, Nicky wasn't the president, it was Israel, Nicky was the president's closest man, I cannot remember the correct english term. 130.236.60.32 15:45, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• I regard to your question. Nicky was the president and Israel the vice-president. Isreal became the leader after Nicky quit. Take it from me, I was around there during that time (My father used to own a TV repair shop in the area). Tony the Marine 16:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

According to The Cross and the Switchblade, Nicky was the most infamous (having done many famous things), though Nicky wasn't the leader. At one point in the book, he gave his story and then said that he wanted to fight and therefore didn't became the leader. Nicky and Israel became christians at the same time, though Israel later fell back, apparantly he became the leader of the Mau Mau again and then got into jail. Have you read The Cross and the Switchblade (as I have) or something that Nicky has written about it? 212.181.185.33 15:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• To all those interested. Tell you what, let's find out from Nicky Cruz himself, if he was or was not the "President" of the gang here: Nicky Cruz's testimony Tony the Marine 22:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
• Like many people whose lives are documented by more than one source, the details can often be contradictory. Whether Cruz was the president or not, both Wilkerson's and Cruz's accounts agree that he was a leader. It's also pretty important to remember that most people's memory of the story is from the film, and even the film contradicts details written about in Wilkerson's book. I do agree with whoever put the citation tag at the top of the article that this thing needs to be cited. If it's that important a detail, someone needs to cite the sources. Mitchell k dwyer (talk) 16:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The Cross and the Switchblade film was an adaptation based on the novel. It is not a documentary. Some of the details were altered slightly to fit the format (for story-telling, time-constraints, etc.). In a recent post script added to the book, Wilkerson mentions that one of the characters in the movie (the female heroin addict) was actually a representation of a real-life male. These types of changes are very common for film adaptations. The essence of the film is factual, but where details contradict this must be taken into consideration.SolaDeoGloria (talk) 23:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• The Cross and the Switchblade only tells the story from the perspective of D. Wilkerson in New York. At the time of Nicky's conversion, he was the warlord of the Mau Mau's. Run Baby Run documents some of the changes over time within the gang. The president at the time of Nicky's initiation was a boy named Carlos, with Israel as Vice President. When Carlos was arrested, Israel became president. Subsequently, Israel stepped down for a period to lay low because of police pressure, and this is when Nicky was president (although he always insisted that what he preferred was to fight, rather than plan). Finally, Nicky was arrested on a minor offense but exacerbated the situation by antagonizing the police. He was released after a psychiatric evaluation, but warned that the slightest infringement on his part would result in hard prison time. Thus, Israel resumed the presidency before Wilkerson's trip to New York. The two accounts are not contradictory in the slightest. SolaDeoGloria (talk) 23:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 07:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Autobiography

Nicky Cruz wrote an autobiography that was published, I think, in the late 1960s-early 1970s. It's called "Run, Baby, Run!" and it would be a great source to use in this article. I no longer have my copy or I would work on the article.96.13.237.139 (talk) 01:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Verifiable?

Have any of the claims made by Cruz been verified by a source other than himself as the only citation contained in this text is that of Cruz's own biography? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.144.211 (talk) 20:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I added a "refimprove" template to the article. It needs reliable secondary sources. Without them, a case could easily be made that the subject is not notable and the article could be nominated for deletion. Wikipeterproject (talk) 06:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Given that the reference haven't been improved can you follow through with making the case that the subject is not notable and nominate the article for deletion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.135.200 (talk) 23:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Needs better references

Most references are still self-published. The article needs secondary references for verification. I have reinstated the template, which had been removed. Wikipeterproject (talk) 12:07, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Details of Wilkerson's and Cruz's encounter edited out?

Why were the details omitted and replaced by a "Wilkerson attempted again later to convert Cruz, and received the same response"? I agree that too much detail is superfluous on Wikipedia. But this minimalistic description of their encounter, especially the language of which would be considered improper (the word "convert" is often seen as a derogatory term) by most Christians. Willcmc (talk) 12:34, 13 May 2020 (UTC)