Music legends Ray Charles and Ahmet Ertegun (Reuters photo by Fred Prouser) “God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations. Jazz speaks for life.”  ––Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival Opening Address The second International Jazz Day Global Concert held April 30, 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey, was as much about the long-standing relationship between the music and the country of Turkey as it was about a world audience enjoying an exceptional line-up of world-class performers. Millions unable to attend the concert physically were able to do so via a live stream on YouTube and other web locations. The music of jazz is one which many African Americans are prone to jealously safeguarding as an original f...

Not far from the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing, a toddler kneels before a memorial to the victims of the atrocity.  ( Photo by Jim Bourg and Reuters ) For those so inclined, it was and is natural in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing to share prayers and thoughts for healing on behalf of victims and their families. Many have conditioned themselves to respond in such a manner partly because it is within their power to do so and partly because they hope others would feel moved in the same way toward them if they were the ones whose bodies and sanity had been shattered so brutally. Victims, after all, within the context of terrorism––whether homegrown or imported––are much like newborn innocents simply because they have not signed up for a war. In this particular case, they had simply stepped out into the light of day intending to honor, preserve, and celebrate a long-standing tradition. Some might argue (and in fact some do) that America, like much of th...

            (Cover for first edition of fiction and poetry collection I Made My Boy Out of Poetry) “Dedicated artists, innovators, and stewards of our language, they tell us not only who we are, but also who we can become. They distill our emotions, clarify our thoughts, and renew our spirits with the vigor of their words and the freshness of their perspective.” ––Former President Bill Clinton, from Letter Acknowledging Launch of National Poetry Month, April 1, 1996 Members of the Academy of American Poets had no way of knowing when they established National Poetry Month in 1996 that something called 9/11 would pop up on the radar screen of history just four years later. Although a man-made mass trauma, 9/11 was equal in emotional impact to what came later: the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that took approximately 225 thousand lives, the 2010 earthquake that brought Haiti to its already weary knees with more than 300 thousand deaths, and the comb...

                                              (Associated Press photo of Louis C. Taylor) “The whole world knows I’m innocent.” --Louis C. Taylor In what way does overturning an apparent wrongful conviction after an individual has served some 42 years in prison, without allowing the one so convicted to seek corrective redress, an act of justice? That is a question which many who have been following the case of 59-year-old Louis Cuen Taylor for years, and which others just learning about it, are asking after his recent release from the Arizona State Prison system. Taylor’s freedom came with the condition that he plead “no contest” to charges that he set fire to the historic Pioneer Hotel in Tucson, Arizona, on December 19, 1970. The blaze took the lives of 28 people (the number was first reported as 29 until investigators realized they had counted one victi...