The Power of Love and Democracy in the Philosophies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cornel West

This book locates an ethic of love as central to the democratic philosophies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cornel West. While much has been written about King’s moral vision, social activism, and theology, there has been no book-length treatment of the implications of his thinking to democratic theory. Additionally, Cornel West is the leading African American public intellectual of our time, but the range of his cultural criticism and academic scholarship obscures his intellectual and social projects. This project synthesizes West’s vast corpus and places him within the modern African American intellectual tradition he shares with Du Bois, King, Maulana Karenga (the creator of Kwanza) and others. Deeply grounded in the African American intellectual and philosophical traditions in which King and West are rooted, as well as the Western mainstream political philosophical traditions in which they were educated, this book offers a penetrating interpretation and comparative analysis of their thought on the ideals of democracy and of their critiques of American democracy. It also reflects on the nature and values of democracy, exploring how love is inseparable from justice in a democratic society.