Marxism proved an inadequate prior commitment for Du Bois, James, and Wright

Evidence

Though their lives were very dissimilar—only Wright could be said to have been directly produced by the Black peasant and working classes—they all came to that tradition late (and hesitantly, as I will argue with respect to Du Bois and James). For all three, though, Marxism had been the prior commitment, the first encompassing and conscious experience of organized opposition to racism, exploitation, and domination. As Marxists, their apprenticeships proved to be significant but ultimately unsatisfactory. In time, events and experience drew them toward Black radicalism and the discovery of a collective Black resistance inspired by an enduring cultural complex of historical apprehension. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 120

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the long arc from Marxism to Black nationalism that also marks James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka.