Free Brother West by Cornel West Page B

We were activists who understood the critical importance of asking tough questions and not budging until we were given answers that made sense.
    The old ways were falling, and understandably many—in fact, most—of the faculty were put off by the assault. Their entire lives had been invested in a traditional hierarchy and a fixed canon of knowledge. They felt obligated to protect their turf. Yet, in some instances, they also reached out to young students who showed promise. Of course, I was only too happy to engage my teachers in more than a classroom relationship. I would visit them during office hours and often go to their homes. I had never before lived in a community of intellectuals. I loved the stimulation. If you’d asked me which I liked more—Curtis Mayfield’s superfunky new jam called “Superfly” or hanging out with Professor Martin Kilson to discuss the history of political development in the black community—I’d say, “It’s a tie.”
    Kilson was a wonderful man who’d become the first black professor to secure tenure at Harvard. He had all sorts of problems with the student protestors during my undergraduate career, but he also became my trusted mentor. He was a man of the mind but also the heart. Beyond his encyclopedic knowledge of history and politics, he had great love for poetry. Kilson took me to his vacation home in New Hampshire where I spent weekends with his loving wife Marion, a Ph.D. in anthropology. It was idyllic. I had never known anyone with a country house before, much less a black man. There was a roaring fireplace, lovely paintings on the walls and books everywhere. That’s when I read the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Elizabeth Bishop. My mother had read us poems all during our childhood. Mom introduced us to the lyricism of Rudyard Kipling and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But modernism, with its dark turns and enigmatic irony, was new to me. I embraced it. I cherished being in this privileged setting.
    When springtime came, Kilson and I took walks in the woods. The first blades of grass were breaking through. Little green buds were popping up on the branches of ancient trees. The air was fragrant with wildflowers and the sky filled with puffy clouds.
    I mentioned that my friend Glenn Jordan was studying with St. Clair Drake at Stanford.
    “Drake is my hero,” said Professor Kilson. “There is no one I respect and admire more.”
    I loved learning that the link between Kilson and Drake was now linked to my friendship to Glenn. I told my professor about my commitment to teaching.
    “You’ll be a wonderful teacher, Cornel,” said Kilson as we hiked along a well-trodden trail. “You have as much academic potential as any student I’ve ever taught, but you’re wasting your time.”
    “How so?”
    “This Panther Party business is juvenile. They celebrate violence and are set on a course of self-destruction.”
    “I disagree with them on many issues,” I said, “but on other issues they have something to say. We have a rich dialogue.”
    “Your association with them will deter you.”
    “Deter me how?” I wanted to know.
    “Deter your ability to excel in the academy. Your style is too black for the academy. That’s the style you’ve adopted from the Panthers. The Afro, the black leather jacket…”
    “I had this style back in high school.”
    “Which is when you met the Panthers. Right?”
    I had to laugh and agree before adding, “The style you’re seeing really doesn’t belong to the Panthers. It belongs to my granddad, and my dad, and especially my brother Cliff. Cliff’s the one who schooled me on style.”
    “But there’s an aggressive style of political action, especially in the Black Student Association, that is too immature. I just want the best for you. And getting swept up in a political movement that will have small consequence in the future isn’t good thinking.”
    Professor Kilson was a profound thinker and he had a special love for