Stage-theory historiography erased long-standing precedents of Black radicalism.

Evidence

Certain habits respecting the framing of events, especially among scholars and ideologues accustomed to assuming the existence of qualitatively distinct stages of human development, tended to trivialize or diminish the significance of precedents of too longstanding account. Enmeshed as they were in historical traditions boasting of, say, Elizabethan and Edwardian eras, Jeffersonian or Jacksonian structures, and so on, rather singular and often superficial benchmarks had become the rule for establishing the setting of human activity. Divisions of historical time seemed particularly easy things to recognize, attribute, distribute, and declare. To such intellects, then, the twentieth century would seem a text in its own right. In a moment, we shall investigate how poor a preparation this would be for the proper placement of Black revolutionary thinkers. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 842