[Ads-l] Unconventional Earliest Citation for the Term "Critical Race Theory"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I have posted before about my quest for the earliest occurrence of the term "critical race theory," which has recently emerged from the obscurity of legal academia to hit the political big time.  The OED's first use citation, contributed by me, is dated Summer 1989 and taken from an article in the Florida Law Review.

I am personally acquainted with some of the founders of the CRT movement, going back to the late 1970s when I was briefly research assistant to the movement's forerunner, Derrick Bell.  I have been emailing several of the major founders about the term's origins.  I am pretty sure that it was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in connection with a "Critical Race Theory Workshop" at the University of Wisconsin, July 7-12, 1989.  Despite extensive efforts, I have been unable to find a dated printed pre-Florida Law Review citation for the term.  Professor Crenshaw had a copy of an invitational letter that was sent out to prospective Workshop participants on April 19, 1989, but neither she nor anyone else seems now able to locate an existing copy of that letter.  No one so far has been able to locate an existing copy of the conference program.

I am still working hard on finding conventional citational evidence, but in the meantime Professor Charles Lawrence of the University of Hawaii, one of the major CRT founders, has sent me unconventional evidence that he and his wife, Mari Matsuda (another major CRT figure and a participant in the Workshop) believe was made for the Workshop contemporaneously.  I don't imagine that the OED would use this as a citation, but perhaps they might describe it in a note.

The evidence is a photo of a T-shirt.  If anyone is interested, I can email the image to you.  The wording on the T-shirt is the following:

1ST
CRITICAL RACE
THEORY
WORKSHOP
ST. BENEDICT CENTER
MADISON, WISCONSIN
JULY 7-12, 1989

Fred Shapiro


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