CORNEL WEST
LIVING THROUGH OUR LEADERS: THE SEARCH FOR BLACK PROPHETIC FIRE
Examining the lives of some of his personal heroes across a variety of disciplines and pursuits bearers of what he calls Black Prophetic Fire, towering figures who changed the world Dr. Cornel West considers the life and work of such luminaries as Ida B. Wells, A. Philip Randolph, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Coltrane, Max Roach, Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfield and others. He locates a common denominator in these prophets including a hypersensitivity to the weak and vulnerable that produces a righteous indignation in the face of a callous status quo, making these names as vital to the current age as they were in their own time. By revisiting these names and the fire they brought to their age, which he argues is alive and well in the current generation, Dr. West encourages audiences to stoke the fire as they did by bearing witness, taking risks, cutting against the grain and telling the truth, not in a spirit of self-righteousness, but as a calling to make the world a better place in generations to come.