Happy Birthday Cornel West

“A black agenda is jobs, jobs, jobs, quality education, investment in infrastructure and strong democratic regulation of corporations. The black agenda, at its best, looks at America from the vantage point of the least of these and asks what's best for all” - Cornel West

(Cornel West)

Cornel West was born on June 2nd, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. His family moved to Sacramento, CA. As a young man West marched during the Civil Rights movement. He organized protests demanding black studies courses at his high school, where he was class president. In 1970 he enrolled in Harvard College.

(West in 1970)

In 1973 he graduated “magna cum laude” in Near Eastern languages and civilization. West says his Christianity prevented him from joining the BPP, instead choosing to work in local breakfast, prison, and church programs. In 1980 West earned a Ph.D. from Princeton.

(West in 1980)

The title of his dissertation was “Ethics, historicism and the Marxist tradition”. In 1984 he went to Yale Divinity School. He participated in campus protests for a clerical labor union and divestment from apartheid South Africa. One of the protests resulted in his being arrested and jailed. As punishment, the University administration canceled his leave for the spring term in 1987, leading him to commute from Yale in New Haven, CT, where he was teaching two classes, across the Atlantic Ocean to the University of Paris. In 1988 he became a professor of Religion and director of the Program in African American Studies at Princeton.

(West in 1988)

In 1994 he became a professor at Harvard Divinity School. In 1998 he was appointed the first Alphonse Fletcher University Professor. In West's view, the September 11 attacks gave white Americans a glimpse of what it means to be a black person in the United States feeling "unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence, and hatred" for who they are. In 2002 he left Harvard. He then went back to Princeton. In 2008, he received a special recognition from the World Cultural Council.

(West in 2008)

In 2012, West left Princeton and returned to the seminary where he began his teaching career, Union Theological Seminary. Also in 2012 West guest starred in the sixth season of the American television comedy series “30 Rock”. In 2014 West was arrested while protesting against the shooting of Michael Brown.

(West in 2014)

Today he turns 63 years old and we would all like to say happy birthday Cornel West. 

Books by Cornel West 

• Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity(1982)
• Post-Analytic Philosophy (1985)
• Prophetic Fragments (1988)
• The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism(1989)
• Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (1991)
• The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought (1991)
• Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism (1993)
• Race Matters (1994)
• Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (1994)
• Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America (1995)
• The Future of the Race (1996)
• Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America(1997)
• The War Against Parents: What We Can Do For America's Beleaguered Moms and Dads (1998)
• The Future of American Progressivism (1998)
• The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century (2000)
• Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (2004)
• Hope on a Tightrope: Words & Wisdom (2008)
• Brother West: Living & Loving Out Loud (2009)
• The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto (2012)
• Pro+Agonist: The Art of Opposition (2012)
• Black Prophetic Fire (2014)

Movies Starring Cornel West

• Street Fight (2005) as himself
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003) as Councilor West
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003) as Councilor West
• Examined Life (2008) as Himself
• #Bars4Justice (2015) as Himself

Albums by Cornel West

• “Sketches of My Culture” (2001)
• “Street Knowledge” (2004)
• “Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations” (2007)

Videos of Cornel West

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAfxFEGF-wY  “Cornel West interview”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1aV9eR5eK8  “Cornel West on Music, Race and Compassion”

(P.S. sorry for the late post)