Cornel is a part, a very small part, of a great and grand tradition. A tradition of struggle, a struggle for decency and dignity. A struggle for freedom and democracy. And he decided a long time ago, back in Sacramento, California where he grew up, that he wanted to live and die as part of this tradition of struggle. Those who were willing to give so much and love so deeply that they could cut radically against the grain in order to hold up a bloodstained banner of freedom and democracy.
Cornel West said think of a Harriet Tubman. Think of Ida B. Wells Barnett, Frederick Douglass, and A. Philip Randolph, Marcus Garvey, Martin King, Fannie Lou Hamer. …