Cornel West comes to UNCP honoring Black History Month

By Lisa Tyndall
Web Editor

Professor of Religion and African American studies at Princeton University Cornel West will be coming to UNCP Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. His visit to Pembroke is to be a part of the GPAC’s Distinguished Speaker Series, and to take part in the commemoration of Black History Month.

West was an undergraduate at Harvard where he received the AB Magna Cum Laude. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D degrees from Princeton. During those years of striving for his degrees, West taught at Union Theological Seminary, then at Yale Divinity School before becoming professor of Religion and director of the African-American Studies at Princeton. He also joined the Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University.

West has won numerous awards including the American Book Award and has received more than 20 honorary degrees. His writings, along with his frequent lecturing and preaching, merge together the American traditions of the Baptist church, socialism, as well as cultural and political tradition which has brought him widespread attention and honors.

He has written many landmark books, including “Race Matters,” “Prophesy Deliverance,” “The American Evasion of Philosophy” and his latest, “Democracy Matters.” These books, along with his two CDs “Sketches of My Culture” and “Street Knowledge,” allow West to teach how the growing divisions in our society encourage the suffering and mistrusts that weaken our democratic process. With his constant appearances and commentary on the Matrix Trilogy, he uses new ways of teaching and communicating with the growing generations.

Tickets will be $10 for the general public, $5 for faculty and staff and free for UNCP students.