The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various 'individuals', or groups of 'individuals', experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their "pursuit of happiness" to outright obliterating it.

Trayvon Martin, at the most, seems only to have been guilty of being himself.

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.

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

Hope drowned in shadows emerges fiercely splendid–– boldly angelic.

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.

Someone had to embrace positive beginnings before anyone could celebrate successful conclusions or continuations.