By Hope Reese

Adolph Reed Jr., the distinguished political scientist and commentator, became interested in politics early in life. Born into a family of academics in New York, he moved around a bunch—to D.C., Arkansas, and eventually New Orleans, which he considers home—and often found himself discussing politics around the dinner table.

When he became a student at the University of North Carolina, Reed launched his career as an activist, getting involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements and organizing for cafeteria workers at his school. For nearly fifty years, he’s been teaching political science—most recently at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently professor emeritus.

After college, Reed, a Black Marxist, went on to help found the Labor Party in the 1990s. In the 2020 U.S. Presidential race—and earlier—he was a vocal Bernie Sanders supporter. But in 2020, Reed’s scheduled talk for the Democratic Socialists of New York was cancelled—his criticism of what he sees as “race reductionism,” or using race, as a construct, to explain injustices—has been controversial. But he sees this kind of resistance to his ideas as “self-righteous and performative.”

I spoke with Reed on the phone about his views on the Black Lives Matter movement, the “rich peoples’ wealth gap,” and why he became a Marxist. Here is our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

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