– ACTIVIST –

I loiter at the nexus of art and politics. My novel, “Freshwater Road” is my best expression of that. There are days when I’m ALL about politics: sexual, environmental, racial, international. Other times, I’m swooning inside the rhythms of Prince and Rosie Gaines singing “Diamonds and Pearls” or Coltrane playing “Naima” or Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson and Ray Nance doing “Come Sunday.”

 

I’m a black woman who believes our music saves us over and over again. Art and politics. You may find me staring at an exquisite Romare Bearden collage, or a Matisse or a Cezanne or an Alvin Loving. My guilty pleasure is watching murder and mayhem on tv – a very political choice as this is a country of many murders and there’s politics beneath that, too.

MUSIC

SAVES US
”

D etroit has a rich cultural history. I was open to it as a child.  I wasn’t aware of the nexus between art and politics in any doctrinaire way. I knew certain things spoke to me, moved some of life’s debris aside and fed me rather than diminished me.
Back in the day, in Mississippi and Louisiana, my embrace of the civil rights movement via The Free Southern Theater was my bullhorn, my voice. My body was on the line. Now, I love my little office, my books and music. I periodically step out in memory of my more glamorous days working in television. I tried desperately to exert my belief in the nexus of art and politics in Hollywood. Now that was painful! But still, I was fortunate enough on a few occasions to meet and work with like-­‐minded folks in the industry – Carroll O’Connor being one of them.  There are others who bleed the same way.

Today, I support a number of causes, including:

Color of Change
National Museum of African-American History and Culture/Smithsonian
Beyond Basics Tutoring Program/Detroit
Doctors Without Borders
Southern Poverty Law Center

THE SUNLIGHT ON THE PACIFIC AT TIMES SPARKLES LIKE A

BOWL OF DIAMONDS

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