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Cornel West

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Cornel West
Woodberry, Hijiri
Ms. Bralock
American Literature
February 13, 2015 Cornel West

Cornel West, Ph.D., is an American philosopher that was born on July 2, 1953. He is involved politically with the Democratic Socialists, and teaches in the Department of Religion and African American Studies. Cornel West is sometimes referred as a “non-Marxist socialist” and is one of the most famous and popular African American intellectuals in the United States. He wrote the bestseller book Race Matters which has sold over 400,000 copies. West’s contribution to the field of philosophy is grounded many religions. He has changed history not just as the first African American Philosophy Graduate from Princeton, but also in his many achievements in politics, literature, and media.
Cornel West was born on July 2nd 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. His mother, Irene Bias, was a teacher and principal, and his father, Clifton Louis West, Jr., was a general contractor for the Defense Department. As the grandson of a preacher Cornel West receive a religious education that prepared him for political debates When Cornel was only a teenager he was already participating in movements for the rights of blacks. Teenage West would later take fond to the ideals of Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party.

In 1970, after graduating from high school, West enrolled at Harvard College and took classes from many philosophers. He graduated magna cum laude in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 1973. Cornel West went on to study at Princeton University where he learned from the Professor and thinker Richard Rorty and would as a result become particularly interested in the pragmatic school of philosophy (EGS, 1).
When West turned 25 he return to Harvard University as a lecturer before becoming an assistant professor at the Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1984 Yale University would hire him to teach American history. As West though American History he participated in many

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