Celebrated intellectual and activist Cornel West offers an unflinching look at nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies. In refreshingly candid, accessible prose, West, with distinguished scholar Christa Buschendorf, provides a fresh perspective on six revolutionary African American leaders: Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Malcolm X, and Ida Wells-Barnett. West looks at the impact of these men and women and excavates their commitment, passion, and politics, in their own time and beyond it. 

Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. A current professor at Union Theological Seminary, he has also taught at Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. The recipient of more than twenty honorary degrees, he has written many important books, including Race Matters and Democracy Matters. He appears frequently on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, CNN, C-SPAN, and other national and international media. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and in New York City.

External Link »