History
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
James Weldon Johnson (center) with friend Bob Cole (left) and brother Rosamond
On the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in the year 1900, a group of young men in the city of Jacksonville, Florida arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday. James Weldon Johnson and his brother James Rosamond Johnson presented to the group through a choir 500 Colored school children a song they composed for the occasion: “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” That combination of a vibrant lyric and stirring music later forged itself into the consciousness of a marginalized people, as the, “Negro National Anthem” here performed by Melba Moore Featuring Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, The Clark Sisters, Freddie Jackson, Anita Baker, Bobby Brown, Howard Hewett, Take 6, Stephanie Mills, BeBe & CeCe Winans and Jeffrey Osborne:
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
As the newspaper obituaries will show, Jacquelyn Littlefield challenged to big boys on a diamond that stretched from Beverly Hills through New York City and back west again to San Diego / La Jolla.
The Little Prince Of Brooklyn
Chapter 1
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
Today, we Americans are faced with a frightful vision: The “Better Angels of Our Nature,” with clipped wings, tentatively clinging to a wobbly, “Arc of the Moral Universe,” whilst weakly accompanied by the discordant strains of the, “Mystic Chords of Memory.”
- Written by: Christopher Barnet
- Category: History
In this sense i have been in love with every collaborator I worked with, deeply in love
Thomas, the French film maker & German novelist was the translator of my poems but we became more than that, much more than that. Without him & people like Chris Marker, Jean Pierre Faye & Marcelle Fontfroide, I would not be living in France today. They made it possible – my epic poem, ‘bateau bleu’ which was dedicated to those who kept my spirit alive in Australia, Nicolas Lathouris & Margaret Cameron, became, in France, my laissez passer
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
That inconceivably pointed elimination from Planet Earth of 12,000,000 souls, including 6,000,000 people of the Hebrew Faith; the sexually non-conformists; the Roma (Gypsies); the physically and mentally other-abled; as well as those who otherwise did not fit n socially or politically – this did not take place in the Roman Coliseum, nor in the Dark Ages, nor during the Crusades. These horrors took place when I was in junior high and high school. At the same time, my own country was allowing selective, individual horrors of a similar nature to be perpetrated against my own people, a people marginalized within a society that hypocritically posed as a protector of human equality.
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
This is a colloquy between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, about the U.S. Constitution of 1787/89, The Bill of Rights and the 2nd Amendment in particular.
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
The Independence Movement comprises the intellectual, artistic and most ineffectually noisy 5% of the conscience of the Puerto Rican people. Fifty years ago, I was sitting in a contrastingly calm Independista reading-discussion coffee room in Santurce, Puerto Rico, when the monitor approached me. He had been listening to the radio in the back; assuming I was American, he informed me that Dr. Martin Luther King jr. had just been assassinated.
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: History
INTERVIEWER: Mr. PresidentMr. President, are you aware of how the current POTUS compares himself to you?
LINCOLN: Strange term, but oh, yes. I had no idea the presidency could be so entertaining. Seems it’s the ultimate toy for a rich, big boy. (Chuckle) If he feels as put-upon as I was, and the Constitutional existence of the nation is not at stake, somebody should remind him of how I wound up – and give him a chance to hightail it out of there while he’still in one piece.
