In African American poetry, the Black radical tradition appears through revolutionary critique, anti-capitalist thought, liberationist history, resistance memory, and collective struggle. The concept emphasises continuity between slave resistance, abolitionism, Black nationalism, labour activism, and modern justice movements. Poets drawing on this tradition often frame literature as intervention rather than ornament, using verse to imagine structural transformation and sustained resistance.

The Black radical tradition, a term most fully theorised by Cedric Robinson in his foundational 1983 work "Black Marxism," encompasses the centuries-long history of Black intellectual and political resistance to racial capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy. In poetry, the tradition runs from slave revolt songs through abolitionist verse, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and into contemporary spoken word and hip hop poetics. Students should understand that the radical tradition is heterogeneous, encompassing Marxist, nationalist, feminist, and anarchist currents, and that poets often inhabit multiple positions simultaneously. Related terms include Black Aesthetic, protest poetry, collective struggle, freedom dream, and liberation theology.