In Memoriam: Cedric James Robinson, 1940-2016
Filed in In Memoriam on June 28, 2016
Cedric James Robinson, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, died on June 5. He was 75 years old.
Professor Robinson joined the faculty at the University of California Santa Barbara in 1978. He chaired the department of political science from 1987 to 1990 and was chair of the department of Black studies from 1994 to 1997. He retired from teaching in 2010.
Dr. Robinson was the author of several books including Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Zed Books).
Professor Robinson earned a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He held a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political theory from Stanford University.
Again we have lost one of the great scholars in African American Studies. Cedric was one of my teachers when I was in graduate school at Binghamton University, NY in the early 1970s. He was truly an inspiration to those of us who aspired to be scholars and teachers in African American Studies. I am thankful for his intellectual presence and his friendship.