FOR THE BROTHAS: AN INTRODUCTION

It must have been about 20 years ago when I first began thinking about creating a "Cultural Salon" as a reaction to the mundane social circles In Washington D.C. The richness of intellectual and artistic interchange had died, college friends had moved, the internet had not yet become the phenomenon it now is... I romanticised about the Salons of the mid to late 1800's in Paris, London and Berlin and the cultural dynamo of the Harlem Rennaisance. I was fortunate enough to meet a gentleman, an artist who lived and traveled with James Baldwin... Jimmy he affectionately called him, and he spoke often of their small cottage in southern France and of the many Artists, Poets and Luminaries that dropped in to chat and relax. Well, the impressionists, cubists, modernists, etc. all hung out together famously in those days and shared their ideas with one another creating a creative greenhouse in a world that was rapidly changing. I longed to have lived in those times, to have met Cassat, Rodin, Ellington, Fitzgerald, Baker, Balwin, well I did finally meet Baldwin and others purely for the joy of intellection upon the arts. This was in the late 1980's and by the mid 2000's I happened to run into a friend of mine from Hampton University who had been living in New York since he graduated in the early 90s. Well, I was surprised to hear him comment that in all of the wonder that is New York he never met anyone who ever really had anything interesting to say about art, literature, architecture, science, fashion or anything... I was so surprised to hear this since it had also been my experience. Well here I am in 2011 attempting the Virtual Salon...

Saturday, August 31, 2013

A NEW FOCUS FOR THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT…






A NEW FOCUS FOR THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT…

The Twenty-First Century Civil Rights Movement has already demonstrated one very clear trend; it has purged away all players within the movement for human rights who might be interpreted as racists.  Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Willie Wilson and recently recording artist Donnie McKlurkin and others have been methodically removed because their dogma opposed the central theme of universal human freedoms. 

It was a wise and necessary strategy for The New Civil Rights Movement to be crystal clear that it did not intent to bring racism and bias into the new century.  There can be no grey areas in the cause of freedom!  Because the fate of so many people hangs in the balance the movement cannot afford to marginalize or offend any potential stakeholders for the greater cause of freedom.

In all the New Civil Rights Movement has been slow and has lacked the creativity and vivacity of old so we will see if the general call for new Think-Tanks and leaders to focus them will inspire a redivivus of the now perilous cause of human freedom not only on a national but global level.  As the old generation of Civil Rights Leaders departs one by one their vivacity and tenacity must be galvanized in a new and refreshed movement! 




D. Vollin  8-31-13

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