Vol. 3 - No. 1
Spring, 1999

Born in Oakland, California in 1940, Cedric Robinson’s radical convictions were first nourished by his grandfather whose radicalism had compelled him to flee from Alabama to California in the late 1920’s.

These convictions became practical when - as a high school and then university student in California’s Bay Area - Robinson joined other Black radical students to struggle against campus authorities and the iniquities of American foreign and domestic policies.

His activist engagement found a complement in a rigorous commitment to study, inquiry, and critique. He received a BA in social anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and completed his graduate work at Stanford University in political theory. He came to the University of California at Santa Barbara with his wife Elizabeth in 1979, five years after the birth of their daughter Najda.

At UCSB Robinson has served as Director of the Center for Black Studies; the chair of the Political Science Department; and then chair of Black Studies. In addition to academic work, Robinson is a community activist in the Santa Barbara area where, among other things, he hosts a TV news program entitled "Third World News Review."