Black radicalism constitutes an autonomous tradition, not reducible to opposition to capitalism.

Evidence

This work is about our people’s struggle, the historical Black struggle. It takes as a first premise that for a people to survive in struggle it must be on its own terms: the collective wisdom which is a synthesis of culture and the experience of that struggle. The shared past is precious, not for itself, but because it is the basis of consciousness, of knowing, of being. It cannot be traded in exchange for expedient alliances or traduced by convenient abstractions or dogma. It contains philosophy, theories of history, and social prescriptions native to it. It is a construct possessing its own terms, exacting its own truths. I have attempted here to demonstrate its authority. More particularly, I have investigated the failed efforts to render the historical being of Black peoples into a construct of historical materialism, to signify our existence as merely an opposition to capitalist organization. We are that (because we must be) but much more. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 106

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Black radical tradition as a self-contained construct with native philosophy, history, and social prescriptions.
• XREF: Reframes the reader’s interest in Black radical tradition origins, directly stating its autonomous status against Marxist framing.