ABSTRACT
Critical black theory is a centuries-old way of describing and theorizing the social world that exists mostly on the margins of intellectual history and the social sciences, largely unknown and under-studied. A number of key features delineate and distinguish critical black theory, elements of theoretical strength that contemporary systemic racism theory seeks to emulate. A primary aspect of critical black theory, one also central to current systemic racism theory, is an ongoing critique of the ideas and methods of mainstream social science. The pre-Civil War writings of black theorists forcefully articulated black perceptions of society and served as inspiration for countering the extreme oppression that defined southern slavery, as well as the slavery and Jim Crow segregation then in the north. The African American historian Lerone Bennett has critically deconstructed whitewashed histories of the United States.
