Who is Cornel West? Flash Uganda Media looks at his biography, age, wife, family, tribe, achievements, and relationship with Irene Rayshell Bias, Clifton Louis West Jr., Hilda Holloman, Ramona Santiago, Elleni Gebre Amlak, Leslie Kotkin, Clinton West, Dilan Zeytun West, the early life and education of an American philosopher, public intellectual, political activist, author and social critic.
Cornel West also known as Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, public intellectual, political activist, author and social critic.
He is a third-party contender for president of the United States in 2024.
Cornel West’s Net Worth
As of 2023, Cornel West’s net worth is expected to be around $500,000 to $1 million.
His annual income is expected to exceed $9,000 per month and his films and brand collaborations are his main sources of income.
Early Life and Education
Cornel West was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 2, 1953, and grew up in Sacramento, California.
Irene Rayshell Bias, his mother, was a teacher and a principal. His mother’s elementary school, Irene B. West Elementary, is located in Elk Grove, California.
Clifton Louis West Jr., his father, worked as a general contractor for the American Department of Defense.
The pastor of the Tulsa Metropolitan Baptist Church was Clifton L. West Sr. his paternal grandfather.
After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School in 1970, Cornel West enrolled in Harvard College and studied under the instruction of philosophers Stanley Cavell and Robert Nozick.
In 1973, West received a magna cum laude degree in Near Eastern languages and civilization from Harvard.
He claims that Harvard exposed him to a wider variety of ideas and that both his instructors and the Black Panther Party had an impact on him.
West also claims that because of his Christianity, he was unable to join the BPP and instead opted to work in neighbourhood breakfast, prison, and church programs.
He then attended Princeton University after finishing his undergraduate studies at Harvard, where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1980.
While at Princeton, he worked on his dissertation under the guidance of Raymond Geuss and Sheldon Wolin.
He earned a PhD in philosophy from Princeton, becoming the first African American to do so.
West was greatly influenced by Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism at Princeton. After he graduated, Rorty remained a close friend and workmate for many more years.
Family and Personal Life
Cornel West has been married multiple times. He married Hilda Holloman, Ramona Santiago (1981 – 1986), Elleni Gebre Amlak in 1992, and Leslie Kotkin, each with their own timeframe.
He initially married Hilda Holloman in 1977. Clinton West, his first child, was born to her.
Following his divorce from Ramona and Elleni, West fell in love with a Kurdish journalist named Zeytun, who gave birth to his second child, Dilan Zeytun West, in Germany in 2000.
Cornel West married Leslie Kotkin in 2015, and the couple separated in 2018.
He then married Annahita Mahdavi, his current wife in 2021. Annahita is a Professor of Human Services Addiction Studies at Long Beach City College.
Career and Professional Work Experience
Cornel West returned to Harvard as a W. E. B. Du Bois Fellow when he was in his late 20s and then accepted a position as an assistant professor at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.
He enrolled at Yale Divinity School in 1984 for what would ultimately turn into a combined position in American studies.
He took part in demonstrations on Yale’s campus in support of a clergy union and the divestment of South Africa’s apartheid regime. He was detained and imprisoned as a result of one of the demonstrations.
He had to go from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was teaching two classes, across the Atlantic Ocean to the University of Paris as a result of the university administration cancelling his leave for the spring term in 1987.
After spending a year at Union Theological Seminary again, he went to Princeton to teach religion and serve as the program’s director for African-American studies from 1988 to 1994.
He obtained a position at Harvard University as a professor of African-American studies after graduating from Princeton, along with a combined appointment at the Harvard Divinity School.
After a highly publicized argument with Lawrence Summers, the university’s then-president, in 2002, West quit Harvard.
In that year, West returned to Princeton, where in 2006 he contributed to the establishment of the Center for African-American Studies.
West left Princeton in 2012 and went back to Union Theological Seminary, where he had first started teaching.
He made the decision to leave Harvard and transfer to the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan on March 8, 2021. On June 30, 2021, he delivered his letter of resignation to Harvard.
West returned to the Union Theological Seminary faculty on July 1, 2021, holding the esteemed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair.
Career in Arts
Both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected West as a member in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Additionally, he speaks alongside Bill Withers in the 2009 film Still Bill.
West has frequently appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, a political discussion show.
Law & Order: Criminal Intent’s “Anti-Thesis” episode, which is noteworthy for introducing Nicole Wallace, included a character based on West and events in his career.
In May 2012, West appeared briefly in the episode “What Will Happen to the Gang Next Year?” from the sixth season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock.
For inclusion on John Mellencamp’s box set On the Rural Route 7609 in 2009, West sang the song “Jim Crow” in a recording.
He finished recording with the Cornel West Theory, a hip-hop group that West supported, in 2010.
He has also published a number of spoken word and hip-hop albums. Sketches of My Culture, West’s debut album, was released in 2001.
In 2004, Street Knowledge came next. Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations, the third album by Kanye West, was released in 2007. It features collaborations with artists like Prince, Talib Kweli, Jill Scott, Andre 3000, KRS-One, and the late Gerald Levert.
On the 2011 album The Martyr, the song “Sign of the Times” by Immortal Technique featured West.
He appeared in the song “Letter to My Countrymen” by Brother Ali from the album Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color in 2012.
2024 presidential campaign
West said on June 5, 2023, that he would represent the People’s Party in the 2024 presidential election.
Due to the People’s Party’s lack of ballot access, allegations of dysfunctional leadership, and sexual harassment claims against party founder Nick Brana, West’s choice to run with them attracted criticism.
On June 14, West declared that he would instead run for the Green Party’s nomination.
His platform for the campaign will include Medicare for All, public housing, combating climate change, and dramatically reducing funding for the U.S. military.
Achievements and Awards
Cornel West has written or contributed to more than twenty published books and has received more than 20 honorary degrees. He also won an American Book Award.
Ethics, Historicism, and the Marxist Tradition was the title of West’s dissertation, which was eventually updated and published under the name The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought.
He has been a part of the Democratic Socialists of America for a very long period, and he previously held the position of honorary chair.
Additionally, he helped form the Network of Spiritual Progressives. West is a member of the International Bridges to Justice advisory board. He was given a special award by the World Cultural Council in 2008.
He is also a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and its World Policy Council, a think tank whose goal is to increase Alpha Phi Alpha’s involvement in politics, social issues, and current affairs to include global issues.
Controversy
West has received a lot of news attention. His scholarship has drawn both praise and criticism; The New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier described West’s work as “sectarian, humorless, pedantic, and self-endeared”.
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