First, let me call your attention to the fact that a number of black students, having looked at the photograph of Marx inside a textbook, have come to me to inquire whether Marx was white or black, “because,” as one student put it, “he does not look that white to me.”

The thesis of Karl Marx’s “Negroid ancestry” is not new. [..] L. Schwarzschild, in his biography of Marx titled The Red Prussian, Informing us of the discussions the young Karl Marx used to have with his future father-in-law, Schwarzschild, in the original German, offers a description of Marx beginning with his eyes: “They were dark eyes on a dark face, and the hair was pitchblack [perschwarz], the nose somewhat broad, and the whole appearance justified the nickname ‘Moor’ which his father had given him.?”

[..] One of the most striking descriptions of Marx’s appearance by someone who knew him, a description that is bound to shake, if not destroy, the standing orthodoxy about Marx’s whiteness, is the one that was offered by Theodor Cuno, an Austrian who had fought along with Marx and Engels for the working class, and later emigrated to the United States. This is his description of Karl Marx: “Marx was sitting behind Engels. I recognized him immediately with his big wooly head. His complexion was dark, his hair and beard were grey.?” Elsewhere, in the same description, Cuno refers to Marx’s “bushy hair.” Then comes what must be a very disturbing conclusion to many people: “His fellow students had conferred upon him the nickname ‘Der mohr.’ American boys would probably call him ‘N—-r.”