Cedric Robinson took a term from anti-apartheid scholars and traced it back centuries.

South African scholars had named apartheid “racial capitalism” and Robinson saw a pattern. It ran through slavery, colonialism, the foundations of capitalism itself.

Slavery wasn’t separate from capitalism. Slavery was capitalism.

He published Black Marxism in 1983.

The book received no major reviews.

Five years later, Cornel West called it “a towering achievement.”

In 2000, when the book was reissued, it circulated among Black Studies scholars and organizers.

August 9, 2014. Ferguson police killed Michael Brown, left his body in the street for hours.

The city erupted.

The Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson police department and found that the city profited from exploiting Black residents. 

Traffic stops. Court fees. Warrants.

Ferguson organizers saw what Robinson had mapped: a system that profits from targeting Black communities.

Standing Rock organizers saw it. Palestinian organizers saw it.

One term connected what they were fighting against: racial capitalism.

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