ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the reasons for the failure of socialism within black America, taking up the legacy of racism on the left. It examines the political development of black socialists and the path they took to Marxism as differentiated from the one followed by white leftists. The history of the relationship between blacks and American white radicals is filled with broken promises, ethnocentrism, and outright contempt. The chapter focuses on some of the sociological factors which have retarded the development of a broad based socialist consciousness in the black community from 1865 to the present. It discusses the current black struggle and the continued gap between major black organizations and the American left. White Marxists often tend to idealize the black community, ignoring tendencies toward compromise and accommodation found not only among the black elite but also within the working class.
