 Race Matters by Cornel West (1994) became the national and international best-seller that propelled West into prominence as an academic philosopher and preacher-become-public intellectual who contributed to reinvigorated public critiques of racism with professionally attuned philosophical acumen. Yet, his earlier publication Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (1982) had even greater impacts on discourses within the academic disciplines of Philosophy, Theology, and Religion/Religious Studies, in particular. Of especially notable influence were his genealogy of racism and his sketching out of four distinctive traditions of responsive thought generated by Black thinkers. West’s genealogical critique drew on several canonical figures (Nietzsche, Michel Foucault) and was thus emblematic of his expansive learnedness and creative ingenuity in drawing on canonical figures to redirect critical thought back upon the social orders and history-making practices of those subjecting folks of African descent, and others, to dehumanization.