Understanding vocation, humanity, and politics through the metaphor of music

Maya Angelou says he “thinks like a sage, acts like a warrior and writes like a poetical prophet.” Henry Louis Gates, Jr. says he is “the pre-eminent African-American intellectual of our generation.” And Marian Wright Edelman says he is “one of the most authentic, brilliant, prophetic and healing voices in America today.” This is all praise for Cornel West, the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University and author of many books, including Race Matters, Democracy Matters, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism, Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity, and Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America.