Amiri Baraka — American Poet born on October 07, 1934, died on January 09, 2014

Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone... (wikipedia)

If the flag of an armed enemy of the U.S. is allowed to fly over government buildings, then it implies that slavery, or at least the threat of slavery, is sanctioned by that government and can still legally exist.
God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning.
A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
The artist's role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That's how I see it. Otherwise, I don't know why you do it.
Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.