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August H. NimtzRevisiting Black Marxism Four Decades Later in the Era of Trump
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 5:00–6:30pm
Over the last decade, Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition has had a tremendous influence on scholars and activists alike, deeply shaping debates on the place of race within capitalist societies. Is race subsumed by class, with the latter the sine qua non of capitalism? Do race and class act independently within modern societies? Or does capitalism inevitably express a deeper racial impetus in the West?
In his recent book, Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique (Monthly Review Press, 2026), Nimtz lays out the limits of Robinson’s much-celebrated text, showing it represents a sophisticated, but ultimately flawed, version of Black nationalism. Nimtz defends Marxism from Robinson’s accusations of myopia on matters of race, suggesting that, in charging Marx and Engels with Eurocentrism, he either failed to understand, or misrepresented, their work—and that, in effect, many thinkers inspired by Black Marxism blatantly misrepresented Marxist texts.
An authentic Marxism, argues Nimtz, remains the most reliable real-world method for human liberation, not least among peoples of African descent. Speaking for himself as a contemporary of Robinson’s, he grounds Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique in an account of his own upbringing in New Orleans, and his development throughout the struggles of the 1960s, explaining how and why he came to radically different conclusions.
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This lecture is presented in conjunction with 3CT’s Marx + Theory reading group, led by Anton Ford and Gabriel Winant.
This event is free and open to the public, and registration is recommended. Please email us at ccct@uchicago.edu if you require any accommodations to enable your full participation.
August H. Nimtz is Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Marx and Engels: Their Contribution to the Democratic Breakthrough (SUNY Press, 2000), Marx, Tocqueville, and Race in America: The ‘Absolute Democracy’ or ‘Defiled Republic’ (Lexington Books, 2003), Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique (Monthly Review Press, 2026), and a number of related articles in edited volumes and journals.
