inspiration

When I went home to Sacramento that Christmas of my freshman year, I hooked up with Glenn Jordan, my close friend who had been president of Sac High the same year I served as president of Kennedy. Glenn had fought with me for Black studies back when we were seniors, and then gone off to Stanford. Naturally, we compared notes about our first months in college.

"Corn," said Glenn, "there's a man at Stanford who's changed everything for me. He's everything I want to be."

"Who is he?" I asked.

"St. Clair Drake. He's amazing. He's inspired me like no one else. He's a black intellectual conversant with any idea you can throw at him. At the same time, Corn, he's filled with humility. His fundamental aim is to connect the life of the mind to the struggle for freedom. He's grounded in the struggle for black freedom, but he's also a universalist who embraces all people. He's a professor. And that's what I intend to be. A professor."

At that moment, something clicked. Something turned. Something changed. I had entered Harvard pre-law, mainly on Mom's suggestion. But I really hadn't given it much thought. I hadn't really considered a major or, beyond that, a vocation. Until now. Now, in a moment that I can only call transformational, I was feeling the miraculous passion that professor St. Clair Drake had passed on to Glenn.

A teacher. A professor. Connecting the life of the mind to the struggle for freedom. That was it. That would be my life. And just as on that day in the winter of 1961 when, with Brother Cliff, I committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, on this winter day of 1970 I committed to the vocation of teaching. From that time forward, I have never veered from either commitment.-pg. 59 of Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir.