Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

White Supremacy Goes Back to the Crusades
Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
12 Nov 2019
🖨️ Print Article

The roots of western European anti-Blackness lie in the Middle Ages, in the Crusades to seize Arab lands, said Cord Whitaker, a professor at Wellesley College and author of “Black Metaphors: How Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking.” It was during this era that “you started to see the idea that darkness of skin, blackness, denoted potential evil,” said Whitaker. “It was still not the racial ideology we have today, but it was an important step in getting there.”

white supremacy

Related Podcasts

BAR Radio
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio September 11, 2026
11 September 2026
In this week’s segment, we discuss the 55th anniversary and legacy of the 1971 Attica prison revolt. But we begin with the history of W.E.B.
Gerald Horne
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Gerald Horne, "Black and Red: Du Bois and the Afro American response to the Cold War, 1944-63"
11 September 2026
Our guest is Dr.
Patriot Front in DC
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Opposing Patriot Front and White Supremacist Groups
10 July 2026
Daryle Lamont Jenkins is founder of One People’s Project, which seeks to combat and exp

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: Elections and economic crisis in Guyana: Interview with Working People's Alliance leader Eusi Kwayana, 1986
    14 Oct 2026
    “So we started to preach the doctrine of self-organization. And we made it very clear what we were after — the genuine multiracial and democratic power of the working people.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Trump Terrorizes Ilhan Omar and Somali Americans in Minnesota
    14 Oct 2026
    Trump is terrorizing Minnesota’s Somali Americans in a desperate xenophobic and racist appeal to voters in the state’s white farming and mining communities.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The r(AI)cial Divide of Big Tech and Data Center Buildout
    14 Oct 2026
    Artificial intelligence and hyperscale data center buildout constitute a new front of environmental racism and a project to optimize white supremacy, with Black communities targeted as sacrifice…
  • Kribsoo Diallo
    The Congo as a Site of Capital Accumulation: Erik Prince and the Privatization of War
    14 Oct 2026
    Erik Prince's mercenary operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo serve U.S. imperial and corporate interests in critical minerals and violate the Congolese peoples' sovereignty.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe
    Contributions of the Alliance of Sahel States to the African and World Revolutions
    14 Oct 2026
    Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are leading the way toward the realization of Pan-Africanism and the struggle against imperialism in the 21st century.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us