Brother West by Cornel West Page A

Gillespie, he was a free black man of the highest order.
    That meant lying. So I lied. I told my supervisor that I’d do my noontime toilet-cleaning. Except that I didn’t. I took the bucket and mop and hid it in my room while I went down to see Ali. The man was magnificent. His mind was razor-sharp and you best believe his razzle-dazzle poetry brought down the house.
    Back at the dorm, my supervisor spotted me.
    “Been looking around,” he said, “and it seems like you didn’t do what you said you would.”
    I hemmed and hawed.
    “Ali?” he asked.
    “Ali,” I answered.
    “I understand.”
    Under my breath, I said, “Thank you, Jesus.”
    S UMMER AFTER MY FRESHMAN YEAR, I went back home. Overjoyed to see the family, I was also filled with the spirit imparted by Professor Kilson. If I had a fire under me, Professor Kilson fanned the flames. Through papers I wrote for him, I had become a Fellow of the Institute of Politics (a forerunner of the Kennedy School of Government). That would later allow me to spend some time in Maine and work for the election of Margaret Chase Smith as well as George McGovern.
    This early political experience led me to the campaign of Daniel Thompson, who was looking to be the first black city council member in Sacramento. Thompson and I had deep trust of each other, and I helped strategize his race. My approach wasn’t all that effective because the good man lost. Eventually, though, he’d triumph and break the color barrier in my hometown. Decades later, I was delighted to support the first black mayor of Sacramento, Brother Kevin Johnson.
    Political campaigns are one of the moments in American culture where my fellow citizens are most open to democratic awakening. So my involvement has not only been to support a candidate but also to lay bare a vision and analysis as a form of democratic paideia (education) as my part in the campaign. From the campaign of Daniel Thompson to Barack Obama, I thrive on the excitement of sharing my perspective on where we are now and where we need to go as a nation.
    Back in the day, though, working on Daniel’s campaign wasn’t enough for me. I also had a grant from the Kennedy School at Harvard to write a book about organizing the black political community. I dedicated it to Skip Slaughter, the father of Phyllis, the wonderful woman who had married my brother Cliff.
    The most exciting moment of the summer, though, came through my friend Glenn Jordan. Professor St. Clair Drake had commissioned Glenn to work on a project on African religion and philosophy. Glenn, in turn, contracted me to help him. As a result, I would actually get to meet the great man. Talk about a thrill. Talk about a life-changing encounter!
    Glenn and I drove over to Palo Alto, and there he was, the professor himself—rich brown skin, soft brown eyes, big ol’ fro. By then, of course, I knew his credentials: In 1945, he had written, along with Horace R. Clayton, a seminal book called Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City . At Roosevelt University in Chicago, he’d started one of the first departments of African American Studies. The summer I met him, he was about to initiate a similar program for Stanford. In social sciences, where black folk were often marginalized or flat-out excluded, Brother Drake placed his people front and center. He asked the right question:
    How do we react and respond in an urban system that tries to marginalize us?
    He treated Glenn and me like sons, spending countless hours dialoging, pointing us in subtle intellectual directions while displaying a mind free of prejudice and predictability. He told me of his admiration for Professor Kilson, and assured me that I could have no better mentor. Being in Drake’s presence, my commitment to teaching was reinforced: This is who I want to be. I want to be a professor like St. Clair Drake and my mentor, Martin Kilson .
    That same summer, my family drove to Tulsa to visit another