by Cornel West
I loved learning that the link between Kilson and Drake was now linked to my friendship to Glenn. I told my professor about my commitment to teaching.
“You’ll be a wonderful teacher, Cornel,” said Kilson as we hiked along a well-trodden trail. “You have as much academic potential as any student I’ve ever taught, but you’re wasting your time.”
“How so?”
“This Panther Party business is juvenile. They celebrate violence and are set on a course of self-destruction.”
“I disagree with them on many issues,” I said, “but on other issues they have something to say. We have a rich dialogue.”
“Your association with them will deter you.”
“Deter me how?” I wanted to know.
“Deter your ability to excel in the academy. Your style is too black for the academy. That’s the style you’ve adopted from the Panthers. The Afro, the black leather jacket…”
“I had this style back in high school.”
“Which is when you met the Panthers. Right?”
I had to laugh and agree before adding, “The style you’re seeing really doesn’t belong to the Panthers. It belongs to my granddad, and my dad, and especially my brother Cliff. Cliff’s the one who schooled me on style.”
“But there’s an aggressive style of political action, especially in the Black Student Association, that is too immature. I just want the best for you. And getting swept up in a political movement that will have small consequence in the future isn’t good thinking.”
Professor Kilson was a profound thinker and he had a special love for Negroes. Who was I, a seventeen-year-old kid, to challenge him? I respected his scholarship, respected his position at Harvard, respected his place as an accomplished black man in the white world of academia. I also respected how he showed me respect. The man never talked down to me. When he discovered that I held a different view than his own, he argued energetically but never condescendingly. I wrote a long paper on the Black Panther Party in Kilson’s famous course, Social Sciences 132—and he gave me an A!
As the faculty–student wars heated up in the early ’70s, Kilson would find himself in a tough position. Because he opposed a separate department for black studies—after all, he had worked to assimilate into the university’s structure, not to separate from it—the radicals sometimes called him an Uncle Tom.
I was with the radicals. I thought the creation of black studies required official recognition and considerable resources. But to insult Kilson would be as painful as insulting my own father. Far as I was concerned, he had paid the dues to tell the news. His news was different than mine. From where I was sitting, it looked like old news. But he was entitled to say what he had to say without being ridiculed. Unfortunately, this was an era of ridicule, one generation looking to shame another.
My focus stayed on the studies, not only because the studies held me spellbound—I loved learning Hebrew, for example, and reading the Hebrew scripture—but I had my scholarship to maintain. Keeping in mind, though, what Dad had told me about caring for my people, I decided, beyond my work at Pleasant Hill Baptist, to do a prison outreach. Seemed like the brothers and sisters behind bars needed to know that those of us on the outside—and especially those of us fortunate enough to attend college—cared about them. They needed to be taught, just as we were being taught.
ON CAMPUS, THERE WERE SOME marvelous students—such as Sylvester Monroe and Karl Strom—who gave me a sense of family and home. In my dorm room, I hung two pictures on the wall: Malcolm X and Albert Einstein.
“How come those two?” asked my roommate James Brown— not the singer but the extraordinary brother who would become an outstanding national sportscaster. Beautiful brother.
“Well,” I said, “Einstein’s probably the baddest scientist of the past hundred years and Malcolm inspires me.”
“Aren’t you more of a Martin man?” asked James.
“I am, but one doesn’t cancel out the other. I’m loving them both, just the way both of them loved us.”
“Talking about a lovin’ brother,” said James, “Muhammad Ali is talking on campus tomorrow.”
“What?” I didn’t know.
“You been too busy cleaning those toilets.”
“What time is he talking?”
“Noon,” said James.
“That’s toilet-cleaning time.”
“Well, I know Valerie’s going,” said James, referring to a girl I was crazy about. “Once the Champ gets a look at Valerie, you will be out of the picture.”
“That’s another reason for me to go,” I said. “I got to protect Valerie.”
James laughed and left.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I had to see the Champ. I viewed Ali as the athletic equivalent of Dr. King. He had big love for his people. He had big courage. He thought beyond narrow nationalism and conventional views of patriotism. Mainly, he represented his own view of integrity. He did what he had to do. He spoke the unvarnished truth. When he said that no North Vietnamese had ever called him a nigger, that made sense. When he said he had nothing against the North Vietnamese people, that made even more sense. He had reached the pinnacle of celebrity in the paradigm of American sports, and then turned that paradigm on its head. He converted to Islam out of conviction. Even devout Christians like my dad loved Ali for his guts and honesty, not to mention his skill. I had to see this brother in person. Like Richard Pryor, and Dizzy Gillespie, he was a free black man of the highest order.
That meant lying. So I lied. I told my supervisor that I’d do my noontime toilet-cleaning. Except that I didn’t. I took the bucket and mop and hid it in my room while I went down to see Ali. The man was magnificent. His mind was razor-sharp and you best believe his razzle-dazzle poetry brought down the house.
Back at the dorm, my supervisor spotted me.
“Been looking around,” he said, “and it seems like you didn’t do what you said you would.”
I hemmed and hawed.
“Ali?” he asked.
“Ali,” I answered.
“I understand.”
Under my breath, I said, “Thank you, Jesus.”
SUMMER AFTER MY FRESHMAN YEAR, I went back home. Overjoyed to see the family, I was also filled with the spirit imparted by Professor Kilson. If I had a fire under me, Professor Kilson fanned the flames. Through papers I wrote for him, I had become a Fellow of the Institute of Politics (a forerunner of the Kennedy School of Government). That would later allow me to spend some time in Maine and work for the election of Margaret Chase Smith as well as George McGovern.
This early political experience led me to the campaign of Daniel Thompson, who was looking to be the first black city council member in Sacramento. Thompson and I had deep trust of each other, and I helped strategize his race. My approach wasn’t all that effective because the good man lost. Eventually, though, he’d triumph and break the color barrier in my hometown. Decades later, I was delighted to support the first black mayor of Sacramento, Brother Kevin Johnson.
Political campaigns are one of the moments in American culture where my fellow citizens are most open to democratic awakening. So my involvement has not only been to support a candidate but also to lay bare a vision and analysis as a form of democratic paideia (education) as my part in the campaign. From the campaign of Daniel Thompson to Barack Obama, I thrive on the excitement of sharing my perspective on where we are now and where we need to go as a nation.
Back in the day, though, working on Daniel’s campaign wasn’t enough for me. I also had a grant from the Kennedy School at Harvard to write a book about organizing the black political community. I dedicated it to Skip Slaughter, the father of Phyllis, the wonderful woman who had married my brother Cliff.
The most exciting moment of the summer, though, came through my friend Glenn Jordan. Professor St. Clair Drake had commissioned Glenn to work on a project on African religion and philosophy. Glenn, in turn, contracted me to help him. As a result, I would actual
ly get to meet the great man. Talk about a thrill. Talk about a life-changing encounter!
Glenn and I drove over to Palo Alto, and there he was, the professor himself—rich brown skin, soft brown eyes, big ol’ fro. By then, of course, I knew his credentials: In 1945, he had written, along with Horace R. Clayton, a seminal book called Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. At Roosevelt University in Chicago, he’d started one of the first departments of African American Studies. The summer I met him, he was about to initiate a similar program for Stanford. In social sciences, where black folk were often marginalized or flat-out excluded, Brother Drake placed his people front and center. He asked the right question:
How do we react and respond in an urban system that tries to marginalize us?
He treated Glenn and me like sons, spending countless hours dialoging, pointing us in subtle intellectual directions while displaying a mind free of prejudice and predictability. He told me of his admiration for Professor Kilson, and assured me that I could have no better mentor. Being in Drake’s presence, my commitment to teaching was reinforced: This is who I want to be. I want to be a professor like St. Clair Drake and my mentor, Martin Kilson.
That same summer, my family drove to Tulsa to visit another exceptional man, my father’s dad, the Reverend C.L. West. When he asked me about Harvard, I told him about my Hebrew course. He was pleased and proud.
“What other books are those professors telling you to read, Corn?” he wanted to know.
I mentioned the modern theologian Paul Tillich. With that, Granddad got up, walked into his library and returned with a wellworn copy of Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, a text I had read at Harvard. Granddad handed me the volume and just smiled, as if to say, I might be a country preacher down here in Oklahoma, but I know what’s happening.
R. E. S. P. E. C. T.
1971. SOPHOMORE YEAR AT HARVARD. I was the kind of student who followed my curiosity. If a course interested me, I was going to take it. Professor Preston Williams, for example, taught a famous course in Christian ethics for graduate students only. I wasn’t bothered being the only sophomore in the class. Nor was Preston Williams. I received an A–. At the end of my term paper, he wrote a note urging me to do graduate work and become a professor, a validation that meant the world to me. I then suggested that I turn my term paper into a larger project entitled A Stroll Through a Theologically Inclined Mind. A few months later, I delivered a 110-page manuscript to my surprised professor and his delightful wife Connie, herself a Ph.D.
Meanwhile, the storm brewing over racial politics, on campus and off, kept gathering strength. The storm was coming whether we liked it or not. Rallies, protest meetings, all-night rap sessions in the dorm. Questions were raised. Answers were challenged. Everyone was restless. Everyone was on edge.
The Nation of Islam was coming to Harvard, and we black students were curious, eager, and excited to see what George X, the minister representing the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, had to say. We packed the hall.
The minister began speaking. He was an articulate and intelligent man, but when he referred to Malcolm X as a “dog,” I was startled. Though Malcolm had been shot six years earlier, his murder still felt painfully close. The minister’s speech went on, and then, for no apparent reason, he found it necessary to call Malcolm “dog” a second time. I was about to say something, but my friends, seeing I was agitated, restrained me. There were hefty Fruit of Islam guards, the paramilitary wing of the Nation, stationed at all the doors. I swallowed hard and let it pass. But when the minister went out of his way to call Malcolm a “dog” for the third time, I couldn’t take it. I jumped up and spoke my mind.
I said, “Who gives you the authority to call someone who loved black people so deeply a ‘dog’? You better explain yourself.”
“Young man,” the minister said, seething with rage, “you best be careful. You’re being highly disrespectful and impudent.”
“Being disrespectful of character assassination is nothing I’m ashamed of.”
“I demand that you apologize.”
“For what? Ain’t nothing to apologize about,” I said.
“Young brother,” the minister fired back, “you’ll be lucky to get out of this building alive. And if you do manage to slip out, you’ll be gone in five days.”
“Well, if that’s the only response to my challenge, then I guess you’re just going to have to take me out.”
From there, it got only worse. The crowd went dead silent. They figured me for dead meat. I figured I had probably gone too far, but I said what I felt. I realized Malcolm’s shortcomings, but his life, his writings, and the development of his character, had taken on—and still retain—heroic grandeur. I knew he was wrong to have castigated the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in public. Discretion demanded otherwise. And God knows, following Malcolm’s lead, I had hardly been discreet in castigating George X. But when the Four Tops sang “I Can’t Help Myself,” they might as well have been talking about me.
When the minister’s lecture finally ended, everyone looked around at me. I stayed in my seat while my friends talked to the Fruits of Islam, saying this wasn’t the place for violence. My friends cooled off the situation to where they could escort me out, but for the next week I went underground. I kept moving around from dorm room to dorm room, staying with various friends who had my back. I was afraid to attend class. When I walked around campus, I had my friends with me. Everyone was uptight. For as long as I was on the Nation’s most wanted list, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep.
Finally I had to do something. I couldn’t afford to miss any more classes. I had to step out and decided to take matters into my own hands. I knew a brother at Harvard who was in the Nation. He lived at Quincy House and was among the most prominent Black Muslims on campus. I showed up at his room, knocked on the door, and simply said, “Hello.”
“Brother West,” he said when he saw me standing there. “This is unexpected.”
“We gotta talk,” I said. “This is getting crazy.”
“From where I’m sitting, I think you’ve already talked too much.”
“You may well be right, but I’m here to listen to your point of view.”
“From the Nation’s point of view, you disrespected one of our ministers, just as Malcolm disrespected the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Do you realize what Minister Muhammad meant to Malcolm?”
“I do,” I said. “I’ve always believed that there’s no Malcolm without Elijah. Elijah’s love for Malcolm was deep, rich, and resurrecting. I’ve never denied this. But you all be calling the brother a dog, and I can never allow that. Not in public. That’s a level of disrespect that’s too much.”
“Our platform and our philosophy are sacred to us,” said the brother.
“I understand that, but you can see where I’m coming from.”
“Yes, but are you able to feel where I’m coming from?”
The brother had a point. At first our dialogue was tense, but when I kicked back a bit and allowed myself to listen—and listen from the heart—we started connecting. Ultimately, we had a wonderful conversation. But that was only possible when I tried to put myself in his shoes. Wasn’t that I changed my mind or that he changed his. It was just a matter of giving each other space to be heard. After a couple of hours of exploring each other’s backgrounds, we got closer. Empathy overwhelmed anger. By the end of the evening, the brother assured me that all was cool. I no longer had anything to worry about. Mutual respect was in place.
My incident with the Nation raised my profile and was one of the reasons I was elected co-president with Kevin Mercadel of the Black Student Association. In that capacity I invited prominent speakers. At the top of my list was Imamu Amiri Baraka, a seminal man of letters, a revolutionary black nationalist, and a mesmerizing poet. I had the high honor of introducing him.
I read off his many credits and praised him to the sky, saying something about democratic socialism and the European cultural traditi
on that had helped shape us all. Well, when Baraka came to the microphone, he turned on me like I was Satan himself. He said it was insulting to be introduced by a two-bit Eurocentric wrong-headed boot-licking pseudo-Marxist slave to Western thought. Meanwhile, as he went on, I was thinking to myself, Lord have mercy, what is wrong with this Negro?
Anyone who knew me understood that I always gave props to the European minds and hearts that inspired me. But Baraka didn’t know me. He was digging deep into his black nationalist bag. Any whiff of European appreciation coming from a black man made him crazy.
We spoke afterward and I argued my position. I think Baraka was taken aback by an eighteen-year-old who came on so strong, but when he saw I could hold my own, he reluctantly offered respect. I explained that I look for intellectual riches wherever I can find them—America, Africa, Asia, Europe. “Wise men and women have emerged from every culture and country,” I said, “and I don’t want to cut off any source of strength.” Baraka warned me about the dangers of European thinking. I argued for the advantages of universal thinking. We went back and forth, didn’t really get anywhere, but decades later we became friends. In fact, when Baraka’s son ran for the City Council in Newark, I spent a day knocking on doors for him. I was eager for Ras Baraka to serve as a critical contrasting voice for my dear brother Cory Booker, whose mayoral candidacy I had strongly backed.
DURING MY UNDERGRADUATE YEARS students at Harvard took protest to the highest level yet—we staged the biggest strike in the history of the university. Black students took over the president’s office to demand Harvard divest its holdings in Gulf Oil, a colonialist exploiter and amoral force in the international marketplace. Our militancy paid off when the president finally agreed.
Ferment continued to brew over recently inaugurated black studies departments coast to coast. The old guard of African American intellectuals could not accept the concept. John Hope Franklin, a black scholar who stands as one of America’s supreme historians, had received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1941. From his endowed position at the University of Chicago, he refused to be associated with black studies. Like my dear brother, the scholar Nathan A. Scott, Franklin shared the views of my mentor, Professor Kilson. These monumental figures had invested a lifetime in the prevailing disciplinary division of knowledge.
