Join Verizon Media, NABJ, and NAHJ as we explore the hard truths about Black oppression in American society with Dr. Cornel West. A political activist, social critic, author and philosopher, Dr. West will draw on his diverse background and knowledge to dissect the current political, racial, market-driven, and celebrity-centered cultural climate. In doing so, he will discuss the media’s role in shaping a new civil rights movement, and his hopes for how the media can help build communities of love and justice.
Following Dr. West’s keynote, we will set aside time for Q&A.
This is an exclusive event in partnership with NABJ & NAHJ.
We are excited for you to join us!
Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is Professor of
the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton.
He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics, Race
Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. His most recent book, Black Prophetic Fire, offers an unflinching look at nineteenth and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies. Race Matters has been re-released as a twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, with a new introduction.
Dr. West is a frequent guest on the Bill Maher Show, CNN, C-Span, and Democracy Now.
He made his film debut in the Matrix – and was the commentator (with Ken Wilbur) on the official trilogy released in 2004. He also has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films including Examined Life, Call & Response, Sidewalk, and Stand.
He has produced three spoken word albums including Never Forget, collaborating with Prince, Jill Scott, Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, KRS-One, and the late Gerald Levert. His spoken word interludes are featured on productions by Terence Blanchard, The Cornel West Theory, Raheem DeVaughn, and Bootsy Collins.
In short, Cornel West has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order
to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing
witness to love and justice.
