Cornel West Quotes

I know my dear brother, President [Barack] Obama, has a bust of Martin King right there in the Oval Office, but the question is are is he going to be true to who that Martin Luther King, Jr., actually is? King was concerned about what? The poor. He was concerned about working people. He was concerned about quality jobs. He was concerned about quality housing. He was concerned about precious babies in Vietnam, the way we ought to be concerned about precious babies in Afghanistan and precious babies in Tel Aviv and precious babies in Gaza.

Tommy moved on. "Lash, your people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. It's time to strike back. Look, you don't have your MBA yet - they haven't completely juiced you of your usefulness yet. Would Martin Luther King back down from this challenge? Malcolm X? James Brown? Don't you have a dream? Don't you feel good, like you knew that you would, now?

I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere. Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex.

Women often find great roles in revolution, simply because the rules fall apart and everyone has agency, anyone can act.

Liberalism, above all, means emancipation - emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty.

But if I thought on it, I would like to be remembered as a brother who loved his people and did everything that I knew to fight for them, the liberation of our people.

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

He worked for the day when all people would be clothed in dignity.

If it is right for men to fight for their freedom, and God knows what the human race would be like today if men had not, since time began, fought for their freedom, then it is right for women to fight for their freedom and the freedom of the children they bear.

You got to fight for quality art and equality and all the things that we're fighting for, the things we believe in. Choice and preference and all those things that we support. We don't want to give up that fight. You got to keep doing it.

To be a feminist is to be alive.

You supposed to be able to do anything in this world. That's what Martin Luther King told me.

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stand up and protest.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

Without Country you have neither name, token, voice, nor rights …. Do not delude yourselves with the hope of emancipation from unjust social conditions if you do not first conquer a country for yourselves.

There is nobody on this planet who was ever liberated by an athlete or an entertainer.

I think women want freedom. They want to be empowered. They want hope. They want love; they want all the things that I want, and I'm not afraid to say those things and act on them, and I think that's why they identify with me.

Dr. King challenged our country to fulfill the promises of liberty, equality, and justice prescribed in the founding of our great nation. Leading by example, he stressed the teachings of tolerance, service, and love, regardless of race, color, or creed.

I stand up for all rights.

Idea of holding each other’s hands at the Women’s March—it feels like we are being invited to do that every day. So many of us are feeling attacked, whether it’s a woman’s right to choose or headstones in a Jewish cemetery, immigrants being deported or banned. So many of us feel the need to protect and defend our democracy. And march toward the dream of being “We the people.” So that’s exciting, scary, and frustrating. We’re awake. We are awake more than ever before, and we have to stay awake.

It may be conjectured that it is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong is in their heads.

Fear is the greatest form of oppression. The best way to rise up in protest is to live your life to its fullest!

Until economic freedom is attained for everybody, there can be no real freedom for anybody.

Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?

Men of Color, To Arms! The case is before you. This is our golden opportunity. Let us accept it, and forever wipe out the dark reproaches unsparingly hurled against us by our enemies. Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best blessings of our posterity through all time.