Reed Shannon, 9, pours water during a libation ceremony at Cornel West Academy of Excellence. The nonprofit school in Raleigh educates at-risk minority boys in second through sixth grade.
BY LUCIANA CHAVEZ - Staff writer
RALEIGH -- Twenty-five boys from the Cornel West Academy of Excellence recited their multipart creed, standing in front of renowned intellectual Cornel West at Princeton University.
"I will always seek what is right, even in times of despair," goes one line.
Impressed, the Princeton professor had them do it again later that night, Oct. 19, at the release event for his new book, "Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud."
So in front of a crowd of 500, the Academy of Excellence students ended with the kicker, "The world depends on me," and earned a standing ovation.
It was a gratifying moment for Antoine Medley, the man behind the academy, a local mentoring program for boys in second through sixth grade.
The Cornel West Academy of Excellence is in its first year of meeting Sundays at St. Augustine's College to study chess, language, culture, black history and themselves.
"Our young black boys need more people to move on their behalf," Medley says.
Medley is sure that a crisis exists among young black American males. He knows he has to aim high, and aiming high led him to West.
Reading West's book "Democracy Matters," Medley came up the idea for the academy; he just needed a good name. Who better to name it after than Cornel West, he thought. After all, in his earlier work, "Race Matters," West had defined the fundamental crisis in black America as "too much poverty and too little self-love." Medley's academy would take aim at those ills.
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