Human beings, in a sense, may be thought of as multidimensional creatures composed of such poetic considerations as the individual need for self-realization, subdued passions for overwhelming beauty, and a hunger for meaning beyond the flavors that enter and exit the physical body. A person might even be described as a self-contained multiverse.

President Obama appears to me to have elevated and implemented the artist-activist concept to the role of empowered servant-leader.

The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American.

Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.

With my ninth mind I resurrect my first and dance slow to the music of my soul made new.

The Emancipation Proclamation...can remind us in 2013 of all the mistakes we never want to commit again but it can also motivate us to fulfill to an ever greater degree the definitive freedom-sustaining and life-enhancing principles of democracy in living action.

Michael Jackson National African American Art Examiner Series