You might have missed this amid the drama of the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential race, but Cornel West is running for president too.
The 70-year-old activist, professor and commentator is not running as a Republican or a Democrat; he’s running on the Green Party ticket.
His candidacy is a spiritual calling, he said in an exclusive interview with Baptist News Global.
“When I was asked, I told them I needed to pray over the decision due to where the country is right now politically and socially,” he said. “It was on my knees that I felt the Lord say, ‘I think in fact, that your calling is such that it would spill over, and you can be — in the language of the great John Coltrane himself — like a force for good, a love supreme.’ It surprised me, because I’ve told many people that they would find me in a crack house before you find me in the White House.”
“It surprised me, because I’ve told many people that they would find me in a crack house before you find me in the White House.”
Yet his improbable quest for the White House continues the witness he’s attempted to give all his life, he said.
“I’m trying to be true to my calling of service. I was called a long time ago to bear witness to a truth and justice. That has everything to do with the blood at the foot of the Cross to try to never be afraid. To try to love my neighbor as myself, to speak the love and courage that has been put inside of me by my faith.”
What you see is what you get with him, he said.
“I want to be able to go into a crack house, a White House or anybody’s house, and have the same kind of Christian witness, same Christian spirit, same attempt to hold onto my integrity and my generosity. That for me is what running for president’s all about.”
What ails America also is spiritual, according to the grandson of a Baptist minister.
“We have a spiritual impoverishment. And what I mean is there’s too much callousness and indifference toward the suffering of others,” he said. “Especially the suffering of the least of these coming out of the book Matthew, chapter 25, which talks about caring for the most vulnerable. We don’t have the kind of attention on the poor, homeless and incarcerated. This includes our precious brothers and sisters in hoods and ghetto and on Indian reservations, our poor white brothers and sisters in very low-income areas.
“There’s an obsession with greed and success. It downplays spiritual substance and moral quality. So, in the realm of politics, you have to use a bully pulpit to let people know this is not all just about the class of powers. My running for president is about a caring and a concern and a compassion and a empathy for others that has to do with food and health care and decent housing and quality. The American empire suffers from a profound sense of spiritual decay, low quality relationships and low-quality community.”
America, he said, has fallen into idolatry.
“My Bible tells me the love of money is the root of all evil and the sense of thinking that you can possess your soul by possessing commodities. It goes back to the 1980s. Americans have always been obsessed with money and business and preoccupation with the 11th commandment, thou shall not get caught. But in the 1980s, greed just became good.”
In November 2007, Cornell West and Democratic Presidential Candidate and Senator Barack Obama greet supporters at a campaign fundraiser held at the Apollo Theater in New York City (Photo by Jemal Countess/WireImage)
And that’s something he believes both major political parties get wrong. Although he’s been a registered Democrat, he has been a critic of both former President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden.
Of Obama, West said: “I worked for him both elections. The first time we talked, we talked for four hours, and my question was, ‘What is the relation of your campaign to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. or Fannie Lou Hamer?’ He was very open about it and he’s a brilliant brother. There’s no doubt about it. Of course, Michelle and the girls are extraordinary as well. But I always told him, I said, ‘I’m going to do all I can to push you across the finish line, then I’m going to be your major critic in the name of the legacy of Martin Luther King.’
“Now, what is the legacy of Martin King talking about? Not just the deep love, but poverty, militarism, materialism and racism. Those are the four. So that when, in fact, my dear brother Barack Obama got in the office, the first thing he did was bail out Wall Street rather than ordinary folk.
“The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. always looked through the lens of everyday people.”
West continued: “So, all the Wall Street criminals of insider trading, market manipulation and fraudulent activity, predatory lending and no one went to jail. But Jamal and Letisha are still going to jail. That’s upsetting. The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. always looked through the lens of everyday people. Everyday people get crushed. I was very critical of (Obama) in that regard.”
Right-wing evangelicals are no better, West quickly added.
“I tell my right-wing Christian evangelical folk, ‘If you want to be fundamentalist, be fundamentalist about that. I really believe that every baby made in the image and likeness of our great God has the same value. If you believe that, then suddenly when you go to the hood, when you see the homeless, when you go to the border, when you see bombs dropped on innocent people, you’re going to react in the same way you would if it dropped on your child.’”
He realizes his work is the lonely cry of a prophet. But that’s the role he’s played most of his adult life.
West serves as the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary. He teaches the works of Bonhoeffer as well as courses in philosophy of religion, African American critical thought, and a wide range of subjects from philosophy to music.
He previously taught at Harvard University and Princeton University, where he was the first Black person to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy. His undergraduate degree is from Harvard, and his master’s is from Princeton.
He has written 20 books and has produced three music albums. He also appeared in two Matrix movie series as the character Counselor West.