I wanted the kind of power of insight and self-command that I experienced in the works of a Jean Paul Sartre, James Baldwin, or Margaret Walker. I wa… - Aberjhani

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I wanted the kind of power of insight and self-command that I experienced in the works of a Jean Paul Sartre, James Baldwin, or Margaret Walker. I wanted to make that kind of music that I heard in the poetry of a Langston Hughes or the stories of James Joyce. That combination of power and beauty more than anything else is probably what made me most want to become a writer. It wasn't until I became a journalist with the U.S. Air Force that I became more objective in my literary outlook and accepted that writing professionally included responsibilities to something other than my personal desires or needs.

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About Aberjhani

Aberjhani (born July 8, 1957, in Savannah, Georgia) is an African-American historian, poet, journalist, essayist, and fiction writer. His Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance is one of the most referenced titles on the 1920s to 1940s cultural movement, and his first book, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry, is often described as a modern underground classic.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Jeffery Jerome Lloyd
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Additional quotes by Aberjhani

Whereas it might be erroneous to claim that the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance revolutionized the practice of democracy in the United States, it would not be an error to point out that the ideas they championed did impact America's understanding, and subsequently its application, of democracy.

Without unleashing the power of life-destroying missiles or forcing obedience to a particular law, rainbows dissolve preoccupation with the predictably ordinary and encourage belief in the extra-ordinary. Such belief, such inspiration, provides much more than passive hopefulness.

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