June 2, 1953 Cornel Ronald West, educator, author, and civil rights activist, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma but grew up in Sacramento, California.
West earned his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization from Harvard College in 1973. He went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1975 and a Ph. D. in 1980 from Princeton University. West taught at Union Theological Seminary from 1977 to 1983 and at Yale Divinity School from 1984 to 1987.
From 1988 to 1994, he was professor of religion and director of the Program in African American Studies at Princeton. In 1998, he was appointed the first Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University. In 2001, West returned to Princeton where he currently teaches. West has authored more than 20 books, including “Black Theology and Marxist Thought” (1979), “Race Matters” (1993), “The Future of the Race” (1996), and “Brother West: Living & Loving Out Loud” (2009). He has also received more than 20 honorary degrees from colleges and universities around the country.
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