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Next Century Publishing
The Urban Diary
The Urban Diary
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THE AMERICAN GRIOT
I am persuaded that we as human beings are natural emulators. Being a child of the Civil Rights Era growing up in the nation's capital makes me no exception. I am also persuaded that every generation needs poets. For poetry is a language pleasing to the ear, the expression of the oppressed which oppressors fear. It would be an understatement for me to say that early on I was enamored and influenced by the powerful speeches delivered by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and later exposed to the fiery messages of the Muslim Minister Malcolm X. As an African American male, I am a product of my times, navigating the racial unrest of the sixties and seventies, to the massive incarcerations of the eighties, to the crack epidemic of the nineties and the challenges facing a new millennium. My views were shaped by the prevailing ideas of the day, the ideas that great thinkers have grappled with for centuries, the powerful, the least, justice, equality, war and peace.
In this book my primary purpose is to be a voice, to articulate the hurt and pain of the suffering masses of the African American people who are not moving forward. I write on issues of our day in Black America and beyond, subjects wide and varied, ideas and topics of our day, from Emit Till to Freddie Gray. The book pays tribute to great black leaders past and present. In it, I hope to be a mouth piece, a true soldier, a religious sojourner, the ghost of Nat Turner. I am the synthesis of Christianity and Islam, both religions truly and equally great. I am the synthesis of Martin's love and Malcolm's hate.
This is not just my diary but, a people's diary. Like the West African poet capturing through poetry the history of a people. So, in this journal lies my contribution to mankind, more than a diary, but "The Urban Diary of an American Griot."
I am persuaded that we as human beings are natural emulators. Being a child of the Civil Rights Era growing up in the nation's capital makes me no exception. I am also persuaded that every generation needs poets. For poetry is a language pleasing to the ear, the expression of the oppressed which oppressors fear. It would be an understatement for me to say that early on I was enamored and influenced by the powerful speeches delivered by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and later exposed to the fiery messages of the Muslim Minister Malcolm X. As an African American male, I am a product of my times, navigating the racial unrest of the sixties and seventies, to the massive incarcerations of the eighties, to the crack epidemic of the nineties and the challenges facing a new millennium. My views were shaped by the prevailing ideas of the day, the ideas that great thinkers have grappled with for centuries, the powerful, the least, justice, equality, war and peace.
In this book my primary purpose is to be a voice, to articulate the hurt and pain of the suffering masses of the African American people who are not moving forward. I write on issues of our day in Black America and beyond, subjects wide and varied, ideas and topics of our day, from Emit Till to Freddie Gray. The book pays tribute to great black leaders past and present. In it, I hope to be a mouth piece, a true soldier, a religious sojourner, the ghost of Nat Turner. I am the synthesis of Christianity and Islam, both religions truly and equally great. I am the synthesis of Martin's love and Malcolm's hate.
This is not just my diary but, a people's diary. Like the West African poet capturing through poetry the history of a people. So, in this journal lies my contribution to mankind, more than a diary, but "The Urban Diary of an American Griot."
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