An Indomitable Spirit of Black Studies

Abstract

I first knew of Dr. Robert Chrisman through the pages of The Black Scholar during my graduate school days. But I never met him in person until he became a professor at the University of Nebraska around the year 2000. I always knew through TBS of Chrisman’s passion for Marxism as the preeminent political and economic tool for liberating black communities in the USA, Africa, and the African diaspora. I studied Marxism informally as an undergraduate and formally and seriously as a graduate student. The more I studied Marxism, its theories, its factional ideologies, its practices, and its histories, the more I became skeptical of Marxism as a tool or even its ends. However, Marxism’s seductive idealism (rhetoric, language, symbolism, activism) never ceased challenging me. Shortly after Chrisman arrived in Nebraska, he summoned six or so professors with different disciplinary backgrounds and research foci to an informal meeting where he proposed that we start a group that would develop actionable progressive research agenda. I shared his goal that we collaborate to make a difference in the lives of others. He already knew that I was allergic to Marxism as a socioeconomic tool of development. I noted that I support progress as long as he does not regard “progressiveness” as necessarily synonymous with its leftist sense. For me progress need not be defined in purely leftist or rightist terms. I added that I hunger for a multidimensional conception of progress that has no radical root in a hard conservative or liberal ground. His response suggested strongly to me that I was dealing with a formidable cultural warrior with an ability to absorb empathically not only the core things that divide him and others at the points of departure but also the core things that potentially or presumably unify him and others relative to the ends of humanity: such ends as social and economic justice and freedom of humans to be themselves for the clear benefit of one another and their communities. During some of Chrisman’s Nebraska years, the group discussed intensely and substantively for several hours monthly and sometimes weekly the challenges and possible solutions regarding the political and social conditions or situations of mostly blacks in the United States, Cuba, and certain countries in Africa and the African diaspora. During these meetings, I experienced many moments of what it means to be a relentless, seasoned, savvy, and non-dogmatic Marxist fighter for all, especially black folks. Activist Chrisman arguably made his best marks with the best parts of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Che.