by Cornel West
In consideration of Little Ronnie’s knuckleheaded nature, drastic measures had to be taken. Given their deep intelligence, my folks responded by turning to the solution they understood best: education. Seeing that I was already an advanced reader, Mom made certain that I take an IQ test for gifted children. When I received a score of 168, I was placed in the Earl Warren Elementary School, an institution dedicated to dealing with gifted children. That’s where I met my close friends: Brother Gary Schroder, of German extraction, and my Japanese-American brother, Randy Arai. Two loving teachers, beautiful white sisters named Nona Sall and Cecelia Angell, took me under their wings and taught me to fly. I immediately skipped the fourth grade and was put in the fifth. When I graduated I received the highest award, the American Legion Medal.
That’s when my change arrived.
WHEN SAM COOKE SANG “A Change Gonna Come,” he expressed the centuries-held hope of black folks trapped in a country that considered them subhuman. Sam’s song was played in millions of households, especially the West household at 7990 Forty-eighth Avenue in the Glen Elder section of Sacramento. To this day I consider myself a Glen Elder-styled Negro. Glen Elder was cool. Our neighborhood was populated by solid working-class blacks. Fact is, Dad was the only man on the block who wore a white shirt and tie to his job.
Sam Cooke’s “Change” brought with it a certain hard-earned sense of possibility tempered by reality. “I was born by the river in a little tent,” sang the singer, “and just like the river I’ve been running ever since.”
The West family had been running. Running from Texas and Louisiana to Oklahoma and Tennessee to Kansas and now out here to California. We’d been running after that change. My people saw that the best way to realize that change was schooling. So when one school shut us out, we’d run after another. Running was in our blood, and literal running became a big part of how Brother Cliff and I got over.
But back in the day when my rage got me into so much hot water most parents wouldn’t know what to do, Mom and Dad knew just what to do.
“Give this child more books,” they said. “Give him more trained teachers. Give him tougher lessons. Challenge his little mind. Keep him busy learning new things. Keep him intellectually stimulated and all that violent business will soon fall by the wayside.”
And it did.
And when I say, “Thank you, Jesus, for giving my folks the wisdom to push for my change—and push in exactly the right direction,” I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
MY CHANGE
THERE WAS THE SPIRITUAL CHANGE brought on by my baptism. Jesus Christ’s spirit surely entered my soul. Concurrently, there was the educational change brought on by a new school that stimulated my hunger for new facts and ideas.
The spiritual change had been anticipated by what had happened at my christening. Mom recently told me the story:
“Christenings are usually not that memorable,” she said. “The infant is carried to the front of the church, the pastor prays over the baby and the family returns to the pew. But yours was different, Cornel. It happened at Paradise Baptist in Tulsa. That’s the church Grandma Lovie attended. Well, son, as soon as your father and I carried you up to the altar where Reverend Branch began his blessing, something happened—something I’ve never seen before or since. The Holy Spirit just took over. Everyone began to shout. Reverend Branch himself started shouting—‘This child is anointed! This child is anointed!’—and then the choir started singing, ‘Jesus Be a Fence All Around Me.’ The celebration couldn’t be contained. Reverend was preaching about how ‘Jesus will be a fence around this child every single day of his life, oh yes, He will!’ Even after we returned to our seats, the rejoicing and praising and hallelujahs grew louder and louder. It was a phenomenon that none of us could explain.”
A few years later, in the same city of Tulsa, my grandfather, Reverend West, had me stand up in his Metropolitan Baptist Church and asked the choir to sing that same song, “Jesus Be a Fence All Around Me.”
“Jesus will protect this boy,” said Granddad. “Jesus will guide him throughout his life.”
Somewhere in my unconscious soul I hold these memories. The memory of my baptism, of course, is clearly conscious, as is the memory of my unconscious christening, my very conscious choice to be baptized, and switching to a school that would redirect my energy from fighting to learning were the major turning points in my young life. I cannot overstate the importance of my relationship to Jesus Christ and my relationship to books in developing my character. The Living Word of an outcast carpenter— fully human yet fully divine—and the written words of hundreds of authors, believers and nonbelievers alike, came together in the early years of my childhood. I did not look for contradictions between the secular and sacred, though those contradictions existed. I merely soaked it all in. I drank it all in.
My foundation consisted of three powerful elements: family; the Socratic spirituality of seeking the truth; and the Christian spirituality of bearing witness to love and justice. If the child is father to the man, then the Cornel who grew out of Little Ronnie was produced by a Christ-centered paideia. Paideia is an ancient Greek word that literally means “education.” When we use it today, it means a deep education that connects you to profound issues in serious ways. It instructs us to turn our attention from the superficial to the substantial, from the frivolous to the serious. Paideia concerns the cultivation of self, the ways you engage your own history, your own memories, your own mortality, your own sense of what it means to be alive as a critical, loving, aware human being.
Even as a little kid I was deep into paideia. Every week I’d run to the bookmobile that came to our neighborhood and leave with a pile of books that reached halfway to the sky.
“You gonna read ’em all?” the librarian asked with a smile.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re having a contest,” she said one Friday. “The child who reads the most books in a weekend gets a little ribbon.” By Monday I’d read seven books. I got the ribbon.
I also got the benefit of living in a black community filled with love and care. Today they call it a ’hood. But back then, it was a sure-enough neighborhood, with ties of empathy and deep bonds of sympathy. What a joy to wake up in the morning and run the streets with my brothers Irvin Durham, Ronald Office, Leon Lewis, Ricky Peoples, and Don Brown! When Mom ran out of milk, sugar, or salt, all I had to do was go to Mrs. Burton, Mrs. Durham, Mrs. Stuckey, or Mrs. Knight, and everything was all right.
When I think of those early days, my mind also goes back to the home of Mr. Alfred Carr, father of my dear friend William. He was an early militant proponent for black dignity. He had copies of the Black Muslim newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. He’d speak nonstop for hours on black history and black resistance. His arguments were powerful. And though I am a Martin Luther King, Jr. kind of brother, the fiery passion for racial justice and deep love for black people found in the often misunderstood lineage from Malcolm X to Minister Louis Farrakhan will always be a part of me.
That’s when, even at this early age, the question kicked in: is it possible to love oppressed people and not be a fanatic for fairness?
That same warm love I experienced in Glen Elder was there when I visited Aunt Pang, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Lilly in Texas and Uncle Earl and Aunt Tiny in Oklahoma. These were mighty loving folk.
And even though I was a serious child who struggled with the most profound paradox of all—certain death in the face of joyous life—I was moved mightily by other passions: I loved sports, I loved music, and, at an alarmingly early age, I loved girls. Sports, music, and girls ruled my young world.
Once I got past the urge to take on every bully in sight, I found myself walking more steadily in Brother Cliff’s footsteps. Cliff wasn’t just a good athlete. He was a great athlete who, before our childhood was over, would wind up in the record books. Many big brothers ignore or even terrorize their younger siblings. Not Cliff. Big Cliff w
as an encourager, a born teacher, and blood-loyal protector. As a model of discipline and devoted training, he not only gave me something to work for, he helped me get there.
And because Cliff loved music—he has a beautiful singing voice and, as an adult, would also develop into an accomplished songwriter—we shared that love virtually every hour of our lives. The musical love was present in our home, in our neighborhood, and in our church, where a young genius named Sly Stone, playing a ferocious organ, showed up at Shiloh Baptist with the Northern California Mass Choir. This is the same Sly who’d become a deejay on the soul station in the Bay Area and later turn his Family Stone into a pillar of forward-thinking funk.
The music that Mom and Dad played at home had an edge to it, a cool intelligence and sophisticated take on grown-up romance. I missed the sophistication but I could feel the salty sensual attitude emanating from these stellar sisters. It was Dakota Staton’s singing ’bout “The Late, Late Show,” Dinah Washington making her existential observation of “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes,” and Gloria Lynne’s bittersweet anthem of irony, “I Wish You Love.”
Every generation, of course, must find its own musical truths, and ours came largely out of that group of ’60s artists who profoundly shaped the way we moved through childhood. We were blessed that Mrs. Reed, the mother of one of our neighborhood friends, was a music lover who ran to the store to buy the freshest Motown hits. Not only was Mrs. Reed a deep lover of soul music, but she also believed in sharing the love. She loved when Cliff and I came and danced to the music. I was only nine, for example, when The Contours tore it up with “Do You Love Me.” Something about the song’s spirit made me crazy. Something about the groove got me to dancing like a half-pint Jackie Wilson, busting moves that amazed guys twice my age.
By then Cliff was moving into his teen years and dating a bevy of beautiful sisters. When Cliff would go to those garage parties, he let me tag along. He recently reminded me of those days.
“You couldn’t grow up the way we did and not be aware of style,” said Cliff. “You couldn’t ignore what it meant to be cool. Cool, of course, had to do with how you spoke, how you walked, and how you talked. But cool essentially had to do with how you handled your space. That concept became clear to me as a boy, and it became clear to you, Corn, at a very early age. Man, you were always ahead of the curve. Those garage parties were your first showcase. That’s when we’d shut the doors, screw in a red light bulb, and crank the phonograph loud as it could go. It looked like a teenage version of that Ernie Barnes painting for Marvin Gaye’s I Want You.
“We’d throw on The Contours, whose spoken intro had us tingling with anticipation:
You broke my heart ’cause I couldn’t dance,
You didn’t even want me around.
And now I’m back, to let you know I can really shake ’em down
“When the groove dropped, you’d grab a girl four or five years older than you and go to town. You’d show her all your moves. No one had hip action like you, Corn. Remember this line?
I can mash potato
I can do the twist
Now tell me, baby
Do you like it like this?
“That was the line that got you spinning like a top. You were the star attraction. You were the show, bro. The best parts were when we threw on the slow jams—like The Dells’ ‘Oh, What a Night!’ Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me’ or Brenda Holloway’s ‘Every Little Bit Hurts.’ That’s when one of those older sisters—one of them stacked brickhouses—would ask you for a dance. You wouldn’t hesitate, Corn. You’d just knock it out, grinding up on her like nobody’s business. Everyone would be busting up. My partner would come up to me and say, ‘Your brother know how to handle that?’ I’d say, ‘Right now he’s just going with nature.’ You always loved those bow-legged gals. The cats would say, ‘You haven’t lived till you’ve seen Corn grind on a bow-legged honey.’”
Quiet as it’s kept, as a kid I actually made a little money winning dance contests here and there.
MY SEXUAL AWAKENING CAME EARLY, and it was beautiful. Those first instances of intimacy were especially sweet. I realized that, beyond the physical pleasure, the girl/boy bond was a glimpse into a poetry not unlike the songs of Curtis Mayfield, another towering figure from my childhood who continues to inform my soul to this very day. It was Curtis’s magical song called “Gypsy Woman” that became the underscore for another major moment in my pre-teen years. That moment, in opposition to the life force I found in the funk of music and the fun of dancing, was linked to the death force. Looking back from an adult perspective, I now call it the death shudder.
THE BRIDGE
THE BRIDGE WAS A METAPHOR, a symbol of racist neglect. It was also a symbol of the fragility of life and the easy fall to death. But the bridge was also literal. It was the path that I was forced to cross over to get to elementary school every morning.
The white kids came from the north and their road led directly to school. But we black kids approached school from the south. To get to the school building, we had to walk over a rickety bridge that looked like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The bridge was always on the verge of collapse. Down below was Elder Creek, where rushing water ran over jagged rocks. Not only was the bridge on its last legs, it didn’t have rail guards and wasn’t wide enough for both a car and a pedestrian. If you were walking over the bridge and a car happened to come roaring by, you’d either be run over or thrown into the creek. It was a heavily trafficked road, so nearly every day I’d face the frightening challenge of trying to run over the bridge before an approaching car reached it first. Even then I knew that if white kids had been required to use the bridge a city ordinance would have quickly passed, either widening it or appointing a crossing guard. The city had no concern for the well-being of its black kids.
I envisioned myself falling off and cracking my skull in half. In the words of Kierkegaard, it was with fear and trembling that I imagined being struck head-on by a speeding Chrysler Imperial. The death shudder got all over me. What is the death shudder? I experienced it as a deep anxiety or dread connected to the overwhelming fragility of life in the face of death.
Cliff tells me that I came face to face with my terror at an early age: “There’s a defining moment that shows you what you’re made of. The bridge was your moment. You were only five years old, but you did what the big kids were afraid to do. You were an incredibly brave little dude. You made it to the other side.”
And it wasn’t just the bridge that had me shaking and tripping and thinking about this notion of here today, gone tomorrow. Though I had accepted Jesus into my heart, it was not my nature to dwell on literal notions of heaven and hell. In fact, when my Sunday school teacher, the wondrous Mrs. Sarah Ray, posed the question, “If there is only one place left in heaven, would you take it?” my answer was, “No.”
“Why in heavens not?” asked Mrs. Ray.
“Because I’d have to do the Christian thing, and the Christian thing would be to let someone else pass into heaven first.”
Mrs. Ray was amazed. “And you’d choose to fall into hell, Cornel?”
I just assumed that Jesus had promised to be with me even until the end of the world. So I just stand on his promise. I have always believed that ours is in the trying; the rest is not our business.
So what was “nonexistence” really about then? What did it mean to lose consciousness? Years later when I was a seventeen year old at Harvard, my tutor Robert Nozick, a superb philosopher, helped assuage my shudder by saying, “Life after death is no more problematical than life before life. What do you think it was like before you existed? You were born in 1953, Cornel, but what was it like for you in 1952? That year, 1952, was certainly not a problem for you. In the same way, neither will you have a problem during the year following your demise.”
As a child, I didn’t have the benefit of Professor Nozick’s wisdom; the death shudder would not leave me
alone. In years to come, it would manifest itself differently. I’d later learn that certain figures with whom I felt deep rapport—Martin Luther King, Jr. among them—had also entertained the notion of nonexistence. As I said, the shudder came early to me—perhaps as early as age six—but to call it total fear would be a misrepresentation. Yes, dread and terror were involved, but also perplexity. Exploration. Where does nonexistence take you? What does it mean to be stripped of your own consciousness? How do we live with the idea that we are always tantalizingly close to death? At any moment the bridge can collapse.
On the other side of the bridge, and perhaps on the other side of the death shudder, was another symbol. This symbol had a name—Delores. Delores lived in the first house when you crossed over. She lived with her mother and, to my eyes, Delores was the most beautiful girl in the world. She had black hair and brown eyes, and when I listened to Curtis Mayfield and his Impressions singing “Gypsy Woman,” I knew he was talking about Delores:
From nowhere through a caravan around the campfire light
A lovely woman in motion with hair as dark as night
Her eyes were like that of a cat in the dark
That hypnotized me with love
She was a gypsy woman
As a kid, I didn’t even know what a gypsy was, but whatever she was, Delores fit the bill. I was drawn to her mystery. I was attracted to her shyness. She seemed unknowable, and yet I was moved to know her. Then why couldn’t I muster the courage to say anything to her? Lord knows I was an aggressive dancer. I pursued puppy love all the time. But Delores, who lived just on the other side of the bridge— which is to say, on the other side of death—was deeply different.
