Backstory Blogs 

Cornell West: ‘I”m a Spiritual Warrior!’

Bill Hughes

Johns Hopkins Professor Cornell West spoke Wednesday before a near capacity audience at the Johns Hopkins University’s Shriver Hall in Baltimore. The event was part of the “Foreign Affairs Symposium.”

West is the author of 19 books, including “Race Matters, Democracy Matters,” and his latest memoir, “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.” As an advocate of keeping alive the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, West underscored the importance of “speaking truth to power.” 

Shriver Hall
Shriver Hall

A Baltimore student asked him abuot the desperate situation in the African-American community with respect to poverty and crime in parts of East Baltimore. This video contains his answer to that question.

West told the full house, ”I grew-up in a ghetto, where people ‘helped’ each other. It wasn’t a hood. It was a neighborhood…Twelve years a slave only touched the tip of the iceberg we were dealing with…Here comes [out of the ghetto] ‘love warriors,’ James Baldwin..Movements came out of that ghetto… You can get beat down, but you can bounce back.”
West concluded his remarks by stating: “I’m a spiritual warrior trying to make sense of the world.”