This thesis interrogates how the shifting roles of the University of Chicago (UChicago) in systems of racial capitalist accumulation shaped the sites of struggle in conflicts with two key neighborhood groups: that of The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) in the 60s and the Trauma Care Coalition (TCC) from 2010-2015. Utilizing Abolitionist University Studies as a theoretical framework, this paper combines existing historical research and archival research to place both campaigns in their historical political-economic context and plot the trajectories of each group’s confrontation with UChicago. In the 1960s, UChicago’s anti-Black urban renewal efforts were closely linked to postwar imperialistic state priorities that demanded more campus capacity. The University then leveraged those state demands to design and pass a federal program empowering it to clear and acquire land, giving TWO opportunities to partially limit displacement through community control of neighborhood development by positioning themselves as a democratically representative ‘spokesman’ group. However, by the 2010s, as state influence on University priorities ebbed and real estate capital rose to power in Chicago, UChicago’s anti-Black displacement and accumulation projects took place through more diffuse collaborations with various private sector actors. This enabled the TCC to exert pressure by directly disrupting a wide range of different UChicago-linked private projects until they won a Level 1 Adult Trauma Center. The specific modes of accumulation that the University was implicated in each historical period played a major role in the tactics, targets, and demands of each campaign.