When reading about what may be described as the lesser celebrated heroic figures of the Harlem Renaissance, we rarely get a definitive look at just how complicated and sometimes dangerous their everyday lives were. In fact, until the past ten years, many defined the period primarily by its well-known literary, musical, and artistic elements while overlooking the fact there was any political component to it at all.

The literary artist lends verbal depth to the visual. The visual artist provides visible articulation for the literary.

Passion presented with a greater challenge achieves a greater goal.

Your pain is a school unto itself–– and your joy a lovely temple.

Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.

The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.

First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.