Cornel West

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…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— Cornel West

Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage…

— Cornel West

Part of the challenge of the Barack Obama campaign was to try to neutralize that white backlash, and of course, he was…

— Cornel West

But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the…

— Cornel West

We live in a predatory capitalist society in which everything is for sale. Everybody is for sale, so there is ubiquitous commodification…

— Cornel West

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

Black prophetic fire is the hypersensitivity to the suffering of others that generates a righteous indignation that results in the willingness to…

— Cornel West

When you socially neglect a people, when you economically abandon a people, when you transfer wealth from them to the well-to-do, what…

— Cornel West

Martin Luther King was not a Marxist or a communist, but his radical love leads him to put poor and working people…

— Cornel West

As a Christian, I got something the world didn't give me, the world can't take away, so I find joy that can…

— Cornel West

We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the…

— Cornel West