As history has demonstrated many times over, change may arrive slowly or quickly but it is the one constant, in one form or another, on which we can all count.

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.

And therein shines one major definition of what it meant to be Clinton D. Powell: someone who looked for, trusted in, and helped empower (if you will) the best in others. It takes a lot of beautiful love, uncommon sincerity, and spitfire courage to do that.

Learning to cultivate an awareness of the known and unknown within one's being often leads to a healthier and more realistic sense of self.

Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World

The thorn is a bridge spanning the muddy depths of agony and sorrow so that one may on the other side dance to the drums of the rose of joy.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.