Cedric Robinson
Robinson in 2006
Born	Cedric James Hill November 5, 1940 Oakland, California, U.S.
Died	June 5, 2016 (aged 75)
Other names	Cedric James Robinson
Education	University of California, Berkeley San Francisco State University Stanford University

Cedric James Robinson (November 5, 1940 – June 5, 2016^[1][2][3]) was an Americanprofessor in the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He headed the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science. He served as the director of the Center for Black Studies Research. Robinson's areas of interest included classical and modernpolitical philosophy,radicalsocial theory in theAfrican diaspora,comparative politics,racial capitalism, and the relationships between and amongmedia and politics.

Robinson was given the name Cedric James Hill when he was born on November 5, 1940, inAlameda County, California.^[4] He grew up inOakland, California. He attended theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where he earned aB.A. degree insocial anthropology in 1963, andStanford University, where he received anM.A. andPh.D. in political theory in 1974.

He became a politicalactivist during his student days, when he protested against the university administration and American foreign and domestic policies along with other Black radical students.^[5] He was part of theAfro-American Association at Berkeley, a student group that discussed Black identity, African decolonization, historical and contemporary racism, and related topics.^[5]

Robinson's grandfather, Winston "Cap" Whiteside, influenced his radical political views. His grandfather had been forced to flee after defending his wife Cecilia, Robinson's future grandmother, from an abusive boss in their hometowns ofMobile, Alabama, and decided to go to California during theGreat Migration in the 1920s. Robinson namedC. L. R. James andTerence Hopkins as other thinkers who shaped his political outlook.^[6]

After leaving Berkeley, Robinson was drafted into the U.S. Army and also worked at the Alameda County Probation Department.^[7] From 1971 to 1973, he was a lecturer in Political Science and Black Studies at theUniversity of Michigan. In 1973, he accepted his first tenure-track job atBinghamton University–State University of New York. In 1978, Robinson joined thefaculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and became director of the Center for Black Studies Research.

In 1980, trying to correct what they saw as overall media bias as well as media laziness in accepting what the White House, theUS State Department, andThe Pentagon said about theThird World and American relations with it, Robinson and UCSB student Corey Dubin startedThird World News Review (TWNR) on the campus and community radio station,KCSB. Five years later the program became available onpublic access television. Since 1980, UCSB students from theThird World and other UCSB faculty members have contributed to the program, produced it, or both.^[8]

The author of five books, Robinson also had articles appear in academic journals and anthologies on subjects ranging from political thought in the United States,Africa, and theCaribbean toWestern social theory, film, and the press.

• Forgeries of Memory & Meaning: Blacks & the Regimes of Race in American Theater & Film Before World War II. Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
• An Anthropology of Marxism. 1st ed., London:Ashgate Publishing, 2001. 2nd ed., Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2019.
• Black Movements in America. New York:Routledge, 1997.
• Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. 1st ed., London:Zed Books, 1983. 2nd ed., Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 3rd ed., Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
• Terms of Order: Political Science and the Myth of Leadership. 1st ed., Albany, NY:State University of New York Press, 1980. 2nd ed., Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

• "Celebrating the Black radical tradition",Institute of Race Relations, September 28, 2005.
• Gregory Meyerson, "Rethinking Black Marxism: Reflections on Cedric Robinson and Others",Cultural Logic, Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2000.
• Chuck Morse, "Capitalism, Marxism, and the Black Radical Tradition: An Interview with Cedric Robinson",Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1999.
• "Cedric Robinson: Short Biography & Selected Works",Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1999.
• Cornel West, "The Making of the Black Radical Tradition",Monthly Review, Vol. 40, No. 4, September 1988.
• Cedric J. Robinson and Elizabeth P. Robinson Collection onThird World News Review, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University Special Collections

• 1940 births
• 2016 deaths
• 20th-century African-American academics
• 20th-century American academics
• 21st-century African-American academics
• 21st-century American academics
• Academics from California
• African-American Marxists
• American activists
• American Marxists
• American non-fiction writers
• American television personalities
• Stanford University alumni
• University of California, Berkeley alumni
• University of California, Santa Barbara faculty

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