# Oliver Cox

Oliver Cromwell Cox (24 August 1901 – 4 September 1974) was a Trinidadian-American sociologist. He was born into a middle-class family in Port of Spain, Trinidad and emigrated to the United States in 1919.
Cox was often misrepresented as a Marxist due to his focus on class conflict and capitalism; however, he fundamentally disagreed with Marx's analysis of capitalism. One of Cox's points of contention with Marx was to argue that foreign trade, and not commodity production for the private accumulation of capital, was the primary driving force in capitalist development.
Cox was a founder of the world-systems perspective, which posits a socioeconomic system that encompasses part or all of the globe. Additionally, he was an important scholar of racism and its relationship to the development and spread of global capitalism, and a member of the Chicago School of Sociology.

## Family

Cox's parents were William Raphael Cox and Virginia Blake Cox. William was fairly prosperous by Trinidadian standards of the time. He worked as the captain of a revenue schooner, and later as a customs and excise officer. He and Virginia were able to raise a family of eight children in a middle-class lifestyle. Cox's uncle, Reginald Vidale, was the Catholic school master at St. Thomas Boys' School. He was a prominent teacher in the local school system and was highly respected in the community. In 1943, Reginald transitioned from the position of teacher to Inspector of Schools. He later became a city councilman, an alderman, and then mayor of Port Spain. Although Cox never married or had children, he was close to his three nieces: Ann V. Awon-Pantin, Esther Awon-Thomasos, and Juliet Awon-Uibopuu.

## Education
### Early Education

While in Trinidad, Cox attended St. Thomas Boys' School, where he studied the usual range of primary school subjects. After his family emigrated to the United States, he attended Central YMCA High School and Crane Junior College in Chicago. Growing up in Trinidad, Cox was removed from the racial discrimination and hostilities present in the U.S. His youthful perspective was shaped by being a member of the majority group in Trinidad's predominantly black world, where white Europeans were considered outsiders. This perspective influenced his later research and sociological exploration.

### University

In 1928, Cox earned a law degree from Northwestern University. In 1929, he succumbed to poliomyelitis (polio), causing both legs to be permanently crippled. He was confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. At that point in his higher education, he gave up plans to practice law in Trinidad, and opted to become an academic in the U.S. He next attended the University of Chicago where he studied in the Economics Department and obtained a master's degree in 1932. He stayed at the same university but switched to the Sociology Department to earn a Ph.D. in 1938. His dissertation was entitled "Factors Affecting the Marital Status of Negroes in the United States", and it was written under the supervision of William Fielding Ogburn.

## Academia

Cox initiated his teaching career at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. From there, he lectured at Tuskegee Institute in 1944, where many thought he would "bring them prestige". In 1949, he moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, where he taught at Lincoln University until retiring in 1970. Upon encouragement by his colleague, Alvin W. Rose, a sociology professor at Detroit's Wayne State University, Cox accepted a position there as visiting professor in the early 1970s.

## Writings

Cox utilized the tools and methods of Marxist thought in his critiques of capitalism and race in Caste, Class and Race (1948), Foundations of Capitalism (1959), Capitalism and American Leadership (1962), Capitalism as a System (1964), and his last, Jewish Self-Interest and Black Pluralism (1974). In a scathing "Introduction" to The Black Anglo Saxons by Nathan Hare, Cox ridiculed what he regarded as a misguided approach to the study of race relations, which he called "The Black Bourgeoisie School" headed by E. Franklin Frazier.

## Caste, Class and Race (1948)

In 1948, Cox published his most profound and influential book, Caste, Class and Race, just ten years after obtaining his Ph.D. in sociology. Composed of over 600 pages of scholarship, the book remains a landmark of sociological analysis. He chose the title to highlight his opposition to W. Lloyd Warner's caste conception of race in the U.S. The book provided an alternative to the liberal pluralist view of race by attempting to integrate race and class. Cox believed that the racialized system in the U.S. was a result of the intersection of class and democracy. Understanding race, and race relations in the United States requires an understanding of the context and history of capitalism in America.

## Awards

The American Sociological Association (ASA) hands out two annual awards in honor of Cox: "The Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities' Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award (for Anti-Racist Scholarship)" and "The Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities' Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award (for Anti-Racist Scholarship)". In 1971, he was the first ever recipient of ASA's DuBois-Johnson-Frazier Award (later renamed the Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award). In 1968, he received the W. E. B. DuBois Award, given by the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists.

## Selected works
### Thesis

* "Factors Affecting the Marital Status of Negroes in the United States," University of Chicago (PhD, Sociology), 1938

### Books

* Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics, 1948
* Foundations of Capitalism, 1959
* Capitalism as a System, 1964
* Race Relations: Elements and Social Dynamics, 1976

### Book Chapters

* "Leadership Among Negroes in the United States," in Studies in Leadership, by A. W. Gouldner (ed.), 1950
* "Introduction," in The Black Anglo Saxons, by Nathan Hare, 1965.

### Journal Articles

* "Marital Status and Employment of Women," Sociology and Social Research, 25, 1940
* "Employment, Education, and Marriage of Young Negro Adults," Journal of Negro Education, 10, 1941
* "Lynching and Status Quo," Journal of Negro Education, 14, 1945
* "Jewish Self-Interest in 'Black Pluralism'", The Sociological Quarterly, 15(2), 1974

## Archival Papers

Cox's manuscript for Capitalism as a System is available for research in the Oliver Cromwell Cox Papers at the Walter P. Reuther Library in Detroit. https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/14325

## Citations

* 1 2 3 Lemelle Jr., Anthony J. "Cox, Oliver C.". Encyclopedia.com.
* ↑ Watson, Hilbourne A. (2014). "Oliver Cromwell Cox's understanding of capitalism and the problem of his materialist perspective". Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes. 39 (3): 382–402. doi:10.1080/08263663.2014.1013287. ISSN 0826-3663. JSTOR 26588039. S2CID 142941993.
* ↑ Wallerstein, Immanuel (2000). "Oliver C. Cox As World-Systems Analyst". Research in Race and Ethnic Relations. 11: 173–183.
* ↑ Cheseboro, Anthony (1998). "Conflict and Continuity: E. Franklin Frazier, Oliver C. Cox and the Chicago School of Sociology". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 92 (2): 150–172.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hunter, Herbert M. (1983). "Oliver C. Cox: A Biographical Sketch of His Life and Work". Phylon. 44 (4): 249–261. doi:10.2307/274575. ISSN 0031-8906. JSTOR 274575.
* ↑ Allahar, Anton L. (2016). "Cox, Oliver Cromwell". Oxford African American Studies Center. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.73715. ISBN 978-0199935796. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
* 1 2 Latoni-Rodriguez, Alfonso R. (November 2001). "100th Birthday of Trinidadian Sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox" (PDF). Footnotes. 29 (8). American Sociological Association: 5.
* ↑ Celarent, Barbara (2010). "Review of Caste, Class, and Race, Oliver Cromwell Cox". American Journal of Sociology. 115 (5): 1664–1669. doi:10.1086/652956. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 10.1086/652956. S2CID 143682597.
* ↑ Scott, John. 2007. Fifty Key Sociologists the Formative Theorists. London: Routledge.
* ↑ Cox describes his relationship to Marxist thought in his 1948 work, Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics: At best, Marxian hypotheses are "servants, not masters." Indeed, it has been said that Karl Marx himself was not Marxian because in his studies he strived to understand modern society, while the religious Marxists, in their exegetical discussions, center their attention not upon the ongoing social system but rather upon an explanation and criticism of Marx — a sort of rumination of his conclusions, incidental errors and all. If, therefore, parts of this study seem Marxian, it is not because we have taken the ideas of this justly famous writer as gospel, but because we have not discovered any other that could explain the facts so consistently. (p. xi)
* ↑ Hier, Sean P. "Encyclopedic Entry Featuring Sean P. Hier". Oliver Cromwell Cox Online Institute, Inc.
* ↑ Hunter, Herbert M.; Abraham, Sameer Y., eds. (1987). Race, Class, and the World System: The Sociology of Oliver C. Cox. Monthly Review Press. ISBN 0853456844.
* ↑ Snedeker, George (July 1988). "Capitalism, racism, and the struggle for democracy: The political sociology of Oliver C. Cox". Socialism and Democracy. 4 (2): 75–95. doi:10.1080/08854309008428016. ISSN 0885-4300.
* ↑ "Caste, Class, and Race". Global Social Theory. 2018-02-18. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
* ↑ Reed Jr, Adolph (2001-02-01). "Race and Class in the Work of Oliver Cromwell Cox". Monthly Review. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
* ↑ "Racial and Ethnic Minorities Award Recipient History". American Sociological Association. 2011-03-08. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
* ↑ "Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award". American Sociological Association. 2024-10-17.
* ↑ Kremer, Gary R. "Oliver Cromwell Cox (1901–1974)". Missouri Encyclopedia.

## Sources

* Biography on the African-American Registry
* Oliver Cox, Caste, Class, and Race, Monthly Review Press, 1948.
* Cedric J. Robinson, "Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Historiography of the West," Cultural Critique 17 (Winter 1990/91), 5-20.
* H.M. Hunter (editor), The Sociology of Oliver C. Cox: New Perspectives (Research in Race and Ethnic Relations), JAI Press, 2000.
* Christopher A. McAuley, The Mind of Oliver C. Cox, University of Notre Dame Press, 2004.
* Todd Cronan, "Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Capitalist Sources of Racism," Jacobin (September 5, 2020).