I remind young people everywhere I go, one of the worst things the older generation did was to tell them for twenty-five… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The condition of truth, is to allow suffering to speak. Which means attend to suffering of the least of these, of the… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
We want an economic team, Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner, Joseph Steiglitz's people and others, who say, you know what? We're sophisticated… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Martin Luther King would celebrate the symbolic status (of having a black president), but he would examine what the real substance was.… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
In a time in which Communist regimes have been rightfully discredited and yet alternatives to neoliberal capitalist societies are unwisely dismissed, I… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
We live in a world where people are fearful of extremism, but Martin Luther King would say he was always trying to… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I know my dear brother, President [Barack] Obama, has a bust of Martin King right there in the Oval Office, but the… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I'm not pessimistic, because poor people tend to bounce back. We've been through worse than this - working people been through worse… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
When you say that [Martin Luther] King was a prophet, you don't say that he predicted anything; you say that he bore… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I want to be a jazzman until the day I die. To help keep that motion, momentum and movement going, for myself,… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values,… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The problem is that affirmative action could never really get at the issue of corporate power in the workplace, and so you… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
If Martin Luther King looked at the Obama administration and saw an intimate connection with Wall Street, he'd be very critical. If… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
When you think of 244 years of slavery and 81 years of that finally you are going to be allowed to be… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The most important assets we have are our bodies and our energy which can be put to good use as resources in… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Hey, you got something going here. I think we've got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The only countervailing force against organized money at the top, is organized people at the bottom. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
No community dictates to any individual how to live their lives. You can criticize and you can push but people freely choose. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Isabel Wilkerson's book is a masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people. Don't miss it! — Cornel West Copy Share Image
There's a certain pleasure of the life of the mind that cannot be denied. There's a certain pleasure about being around people… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
A neoliberal disaster is one who generates a mass incarceration regime, who deregulates banks and markets, who promotes chaos of regime change… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I have some notions that have people conceiving of themselves as capable of changing the world. That's why, for me, the issues… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
When you teach black people that they are less beautiful, less moral, less intelligent, and as a result you defer to the… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Frederick Douglas's agenda was an agenda, not for black people to get out of slavery. It was for America to become a… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Martin King was fundamentally committed to the least of these [poor, working people]. Of course, he was a Christian soldier for justice… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
Greatness is telling the truth & being courageous in pursuit of justice. The worst thing you could tell young people is to… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
White supremacist ideology is based first and foremost on the degradation of black bodies in order to control them. One of the… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I had blackouts, fallen out, of course, the death threats, people showing up, putting guns to my wife's head with mask, and… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
All talks about legacies of white supremacy must be tied to empowering the lives of poor and working people as a whole.… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
I think it's important not to view Martin Luther King Jr. in a narrow political manner. His fundamental commitment is to a… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man/woman in the… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
The problem is not just affirmative action, though. The problem is poor people, working people and their children, and affirmative action for… — Cornel West Copy Share Image
There has certainly been ugly, right-wing hatred targeting Barack Obama. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.' — Cornel West Copy Share Image
“Like King, we need to put on our cemetery clothes and be coffin-ready for the next great democratic battle.” — Cornel West Copy Share Image
“You can't really move forward until you look back. [From Remaking America panel discussion at George Washington University]” — Cornel West Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo. — Cornel West Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
![“I know my dear brother, President [Barack] Obama, has a bust of Martin King right there in the Oval Office, but the question is are is he going to be true to who that Martin Luther King, Jr., actually is? King was concerned about what? The poor. He was concerned about working people. He was…” quote by Cornel West](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/6cd/cornel-west-708_afghanistan_i-know-my-dear-brother-president-barack_792715.jpg)
![“When you say that [Martin Luther] King was a prophet, you don't say that he predicted anything; you say that he bore witness. He left a committed life so that people would never forget the suffering of people that he was connected to. King was prophetic because he lived a committed life. Now he…” quote by Cornel West](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/81a/cornel-west-708_bores_when-you-say-that-martin-luther-king-was_1290198.jpg)
![“Martin King was fundamentally committed to the least of these [poor, working people]. Of course, he was a Christian soldier for justice from the 25th chapter of Matthew.” quote by Cornel West](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/107/cornel-west-708_chapters_martin-king-was-fundamentally-committed_2524206.jpg)
![“You can't really move forward until you look back. [From Remaking America panel discussion at George Washington University]” quote by Cornel West](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/273/cornel-west-708_george-w_you-can-t-really-move-forward-until-you_37313.jpg)
