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

Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.

Beauty from another world gave birth to your voice-- sent to rescue scorned hearts from traumatized nights.

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.

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

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.