Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 2, 1953, Dr. Cornel West is a prominent and provocative public intellectual dedicated to democracy. Currently the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton.

Since then, he has taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard and the University of Paris. He has written 19 books and edited 13 other. He is best known for his classic Race Matters,corn as well as 'Democracy Matters,' and his recent [2009] memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.   A cultural icon, he is the recipient of the American Book Award as well as more than 20 honorary degrees

He appears frequently on the Bill Maher Show, Colbert Report, CNN and C-Span as well as on Tavis Smiley's PBS-TV Show. And since last fall, he can be heard regularly on The Smiley and West radio program.

He has also appeared in over 25 documentaries and recorded 3 spoken word albums. In short, Cornel West has a passion to communicate in order to keep alive the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ' a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.

Read an AALBC.com interview with Dr. West from Jan 2011

Dr. West Supports Barack Obama at Harlem Fundraiser on Nov. 29th 2007 (Click to view Part 2)

 

Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, a Memoir
Click to order via Amazon

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Smiley Books (October 15, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401921892
ISBN-13: 978-1401921897

Read an interview with Dr. West as he discusses his book  Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, a Memoir (December 2009)

New York Times' best-selling author Cornel West is one of America's most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the streets, the prisons, or the church, Dr. West's penetrating brilliance has been a bright beacon shining through the darkness for decades. Yet, as he points out in this new memoir, 'I've never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of the dark precincts of my soul.'

That is, until now.

Brother West is like its author: brilliant, unapologetic, full of passion yet cool. This poignant memoir traces West's transformation from a schoolyard Robin Hood into a progressive cultural icon. From his youthful investigation of the 'death shudder' to why he embraced his calling of teaching over preaching, from his three marriages and his two precious children to his near-fatal bout with prostate cancer, West illuminates what it means to live as 'an aspiring bluesman in a world of ideas and a jazzman in the life of the mind.' Woven together with the fibers of his lifelong commitment to the prophetic Christian tradition that began in Sacramento's Shiloh Baptist Church, Brother West is a tale of a man courageous enough to be fully human, living and loving out loud.

 

Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom
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Hardcover: 246 Pages, illustrated (Includes a free CD)
Publisher: Smiley Books (November 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401921868
ISBN-13: 978-1401921866
Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 6 x 1 inches

Read an AALBC.com Book Review

"Cornel West has been called America's "Public Intellectual", aptly describing his relaxed demeanor and easy accessibility. He avoids the jargon that oftentimes separates the scholar from the world he or she is supposed to describe. "  Read an interview with Dr. West as he discusses his book  Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom (November 2008)

The New York Times best-selling author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters offers open-hearted wisdom for our times in this courageous collection of quotations, speech excerpts, letters, philosophy, and photographs that reflect the profound humanity that fuels the passionate public intellectual. In a world that seesaws between unconditional love and acceptance and blind hatred and exclusion, Hope on a Tightrope will satisfy readers in search of deep wells of inspiration and challenge that marries the mind to the heart.

This gift book features an original CD that highlights Dr. West's outstanding spoken-word artistry. His August 2007 CD release Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations that featured collaborations with best-selling artists Prince, Jill Scott, and Andre 3000 topped the charts as Billboard's #1 Spoken Word album.

 

Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
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ISBN: 1594200297
Format: Hardcover, 256pp
Pub. Date: September 2004
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The

In his major bestseller, Race Matters, philosopher Cornel West burst onto the national scene with his searing analysis of the scars of racism in American democracy. Race Matters has become a contemporary classic, still in print after ten years, having sold more than four hundred thousand copies. A mesmerizing speaker with a host of fervidly devoted fans, West gives as many as one hundred public lectures a year and appears regularly on radio and television. Praised by The New York Times for his "ferocious moral vision" and hailed by Newsweek as "an elegant prophet with attitude," he bridges the gap between black and white opinion about the country's problems.

In Democracy Matters, West returns to the analysis of the arrested development of democracy-both in America and in the crisis-ridden Middle East. In a strikingly original diagnosis, he argues that if America is to become a better steward of democratization around the world, we must first wake up to the long history of imperialist corruption that has plagued our own democracy. Both our failure to foster peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the crisis of Islamist anti-Americanism stem largely from hypocrisies in our dealings with the world. Racism and imperial expansionism have gone hand in hand in our country's inexorable drive toward hegemony, and our current militarism is only the latest expression of that drive. Even as we are shocked by Islamic fundamentalism, our own brand of fundamentalism, which West dubs Constantinian Christianity, has joined forces with imperialist corporate and political elites in an unholy alliance, and four decades after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., insidious racism still inflicts debilitating psychic pain on so many of our citizens.

But there is a deep democratic tradition in America of impassioned commitment to the fight against imperialist corruptions-the last great expression of which was the civil rights movement led by Dr. King-and West brings forth the powerful voices of that great democratizing tradition in a brilliant and deeply moving call for the revival of our better democratic nature. His impassioned and provocative argument for the revitalization of America's democracy will reshape the terms of the raging national debate about America's role in today's troubled world.

 

Cornel West
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by Corinne J. Naden, Rose Blue

ISBN: 1410910407
Format: Hardcover, 64pp
Pub. Date: February 2004
Publisher: Raintree Publishers
Age Range: 9 to 12

About the African-American Biographies Series:

These biographies tell the inspiring stories of musicians, writers, actors, educators, sports heroes, and leaders whose determination and talent continue to set examples today. Readers will be fascinated to learn about the lives of well-known African Americans who overcame tremendous odds, such as racism and poverty, and went on to leave their lasting marks in the world.

 

Leadership in Your Midst: Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives
(HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition) from: Harvard Business Review
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Format: Adobe Reader (PDF), Printable: Yes
Windows  & Mac OS Compatible & Handheld Compatible: PalmOS, Pocket PC, and Symbian OS. - Digital: 11 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business Review (April 29, 2006)

All companies value leadership--some of them enough to invest dearly in cultivating it. But few management teams seem to value one engine of leadership development that is right under their noses, churning out the kind of talent they need most. It's the complicated, overburdened but very rich lives of their minority managers. Minority professionals--particularly women of color--are called upon inordinately to lend their skills and guidance to activities outside their jobs. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who heads the Center for Work-Life Policy, and her co-authors, Carolyn Buck Luce of Ernst & Young and Cornel West of Princeton, present new research on the extent to which minority professionals take on community service and other responsibilities outside the workplace and more than their share of recruiting, mentoring, and committee work within the workplace. These invisible lives, argue the authors, can be a source of competitive strength if companies can learn to recognize and further cultivate the cultural capital they represent. But it's hard to convince minority professionals that their employer respects and values their off-hours responsibilities. A lack of trust keeps many people from revealing much about their personal lives. The authors outline four ways companies can leverage hidden skills: Develop a new level of awareness of minority professionals' invisible lives; appreciate the outsize burdens these professionals carry and try to lighten them; build trust by putting teeth into diversity goals; and, to finish the job of leadership development, help minorities reflect on their off-hours experiences, extract and generalize the lessons, and apply what's been learned in other settings.

 

African American Religious Thought: An Anthology
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Cornel West (Editor), Eddie S. Glaude (Editor)

ISBN: 0664224598
Format: Paperback, 1080pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Believing that African American religious studies has reached a crossroads, Cornel West and Eddie Glaude seek, in this landmark anthology, to steer the discipline into the future Arguing that the complexity of beliefs, choices, and actions of African Americans need not be reduced to expressions of black religion, West and Glaude call for more careful reflection on the complex relationships of African American religious studies to conceptions of class, gender, sexual orientation, race, empire, and other values that continue to challenge our democratic ideals.

 

The Future of the Race
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by Dr. Cornel West & Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

ISBN: 0679763783
Format: Paperback, 224pp
Pub. Date: December 1996
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group

In a ground-breaking collaboration, and taking the great W. E. B. Du Bois as their model, two of our foremost African-American intellectuals address the dreams, fears, aspirations, and responsibilities of the black community - especially the black elite - on the eve of the twenty-first century. In 1903, the influential historian, editor, and co-founder of the NAACP, W. E. B. Du Bois, published his now famous essay "The Talented Tenth." "The Negro race," it began, "like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men." For the young post-Civil Rights era group of leaders, of which Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cornel West have become such a significant part, "The Talented Tenth" was held up as a model for the social, political, and ethical roles of the new "crossover" generation. Du Bois's belief in an educated class dedicated to reform became their inspiration and their credo. Now, nearly a century after Du Bois set forth the role of the educated black American, Gates and West explore this pivotal aspect of his intellectual legacy - and, in so doing, they not only re-examine Du Bois's ideas on leadership but also respond to the challenges of the present. The problems are clear and urgent. Since the day Martin Luther King, Jr., died, the black middle class has quadrupled. Yet, simultaneously, the size of the black underclass has disproportionately and tragically skyrocketed.

 

Race Matters Click to order via Amazon Format: Hardcover, 112pp. ISBN: 0807009180 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: March  1993 The scholar, theologian, and activist who has been acclaimed as one of the most eloquent voices in our ongoing racial debate now bridges the gulf between black and white America in a work of enormous resonance and moral authority. West takes on the questions of politics, economics, ethics, and spirituality and addresses the crisis in black leadership. Read an AALBC.com review From Publisher's Weekly: From Publisher's Weekly: In eight brief but powerful essays, West, director of Afro-American Studies at Princeton, delivers innovative analyses of our nation's racial dilemmas. West is insistently moral, criticizing racial hierarchy and black leaders who cannot transcend race to fight for ``fundamental social change.'' Though he does not spare black liberals, he more harshly criticizes ``new black conservatives'' who in his view ignore the damaging cultural force of black sexual and military images as employed in advertisements and mass media. Exploring black-Jewish relations, he suggests that the moral voices in black America have been drowned out, and in ``Black Sexuality,'' takes on what has long been considered a taboo subject. These essays, none written in the first person, can have an air of detachment: when West calls for a ``politics of conversion'' to fight black nihilism, his best example comes from Toni Morrison's novel Beloved; when he criticizes Malcolm X for having ignored the culturally hybrid character of black life, he proposes the figure of ``jazz freedom fighter'' as one who could ``promote critical exchange and broad reflection.'' But West is more healing visionary than historian. These essays, most of which first appeared in such magazines as Dissent and Z , solidify his position as one of the nation's leading public intellectuals. 40,000 first printing; paperback rights to Vintage; BOMC selection; QPB featured selection; author tour. (Apr.)

The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America's Beleaguered Moms and Dads Click to order via Amazon Author:  Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Cornel West Publisher:  Houghton Mifflin Company Date Published:  March 1998 Format:  Trade Cloth Read about the issues addressed in this book "Do you really think the problems plaguing black America and white America are so similar that they can be fairly addressed in one book?" "Cornel West: Well, one, it's a good question. The kind of policy Sylvia and I promote would surely uplift and empower and ennoble parents, especially working and poor parents across the racial divide, yet certainly, the presence of subtle and not-so-subtle racism would still affect parents of color. To improve the quality of parenting would improve the quality of life in communities of all colors, though lingering racism still challenges us."

Restoring Hope; Conversations on the Future of Black America Click to order via Amazon Hardcover Publisher: Boston : Beacon Press (1997) ASIN: B000KRIOXS From Publisher's Weekly: From Publisher's Weekly:  This book transcribes eight meandering conversations on race conducted by West (Race Matters) with such prominent people as Harry Belafonte, poet/publisher Haki Madhubuti and Wynton Marsalis. Several were held publicly at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, and many range far from the ostensible topic of race. Among the more substantive points here: ex-senator Bill Bradley calls for properly funding the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; law professor Patricia Williams suggests that not talking about race leads to stress and mental illness in blacks; Maya Angelou urges listeners to "use it all," to gain inspiration from any thinker. However, the speechifying West tends to applaud rather than challenge his interviewees, and this book does not fully engage many important issuesAfrocentrism, affirmative action, unwed motherhood, tensions between black men and black womenthat will likely affect the future of black America. This title is the first project of the Obsidian Society, a nonprofit organization that helps African American arts projects. Sealey, who edited these tapes, is founder of the Obsidian Society and a doctoral student in American history at the City University of New York.

Related Links

Dr. Cornel West - The 'America's Next Chapter' Interview
http://aalbc.com/reviews/dr_cornel_west.html

Examined Life (Film Review)
Cornel West & Company Weigh-In on the State of American Culture
http://reviews.aalbc.com/examined_life.htm

Cornel West: The Hope on a Tightrope Interview
http://reviews.aalbc.com/cornel_west.htm

Dr. West is featured in the 2011 documentary film,

Behind Those Books, which is a thought Provoking Documentary Tackling Societal Ills Through Literature

The film was Written & Produced by: Kaven Brown & Edited & Directed by:
Mills Miller

Visit http://aalbc.it/behindthosebooks to learn more