Cornel Ronald West (2 June 1953-) was an American socialist political activist and philosopher who ran for President of the United States in 2024 as the candidate of the Justice for All Party.
Biography
Cornel West was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1953, and he was raised in Sacramento, California. He was involved in the Black Power movement in high school, admiring "the sincere black militancy of Malcolm X, the defiant rage of the Black Panther Party, and the livid black theology of James Cone." His studies of Christianity prevented him from joining the Black Panthers, instead directing him to work in breakfast, prison, and church programs. He went on to become a seminary professor in New York City, at Princeton, and at Harvard, where he taught African-American studies and courses in divinity, religion, and philosophy.
West became known for his socialist views, claiming that the United States was a "racist patriarchal" nation where white supremacy continues to define everyday life. He also claimed that the 9/11 attacks "gave white Americans a glimpse of what it means to be a black person in the United States," served as honorary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America (the first multiracial, socialist organization close enough to his politics that he felt he could join), opposed the Iraq War, served as a senior advisor to 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley and GPUS candidate Ralph Nader, supported the BDS movement against Israel, supported PETA in its war on KFC, criticized Occupy Wall Street for its lack of a clear and unified message, supported Julian Assange for "laying bare some of the crimes and lies of the American empire," accused the Russian invasion of Ukraine of being an act proposed by the expansion of NATO, and claimed that Joe Biden was a war criminal for supporting Israel during the 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas War.
West endorsed Bernie Sanders and then Jill Stein in 2016, and, on 5 June 2023, he announced he would run in the 2024 presidential election under the Movement for a People's Party banner. Controversies surrounding the party's founder Nick Brana led West to switch his allegiance to the Green Party, campaigning for free healthcare, public housing, climate change action, and drastically cutting the US military budget. On 5 October 2023, he abandoned his candidacy for the GPUS nomination and instead ran as an independent, only to found the Justice for All Party on 1 February 2024.