We look at the legacy of Frederick Douglass and Ida B…

There has certainly been ugly, right-wing hatred targeting Barack Obama.

— Cornel West

What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You…

— Cornel West

I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'

— Cornel West

“Like King, we need to put on our cemetery clothes and be coffin-ready for the next great democratic battle.”

— Cornel West

“You can't really move forward until you look back. [From Remaking America panel discussion at George Washington University]”

— Cornel West

When we think of globalization we are thinking in part of structures and institutions that have been developed over time and that have allowed…

— Cornel West

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

— Cornel West

The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they…

— Cornel West

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.

— Cornel West

I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I can't stand…

— Cornel West

Barack Obama has domesticated the left in such a way that we feel as if we have no alternative but him...I refuse to accept…

— Cornel West

Larry Summers, I think, he had a long history of arrogance and relative ignorance about poor people's culture and working people's culture and so…

— Cornel West

The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.

— Cornel West

You can see it in terms of the obsession on Wall Street with not just profits but greed, more profit, more profit.

— Cornel West

Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots.

— Cornel West