Dr. Cornel West
Photo: from Cornel West (Publisher: Raintree Publishers)

Cornel West, professor of African-American studies and philosophy of religion at Harvard University, has been a champion for racial justice since childhood. A noted social and economic philosopher, he has taken his struggle for racial equity to the national spotlight. His best-selling book, "Race Matters," touched a nerve in the American public and triggered a national debate on race issues.

West graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in only three years. He earned his master's and doctorate degrees from Princeton University. He then became a professor of religion and the director of the Afro-American Studies program at Princeton.

"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. "

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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.

 

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