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How We Find Our Silenced Voices and Learn to Sing
This child who had been silenced went on to become a world-famous poet who won three Grammys and spoke six languages. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. She had an abounding love for everyone. She was asked by the United Nations to write a poem for the world.
Blues from the Streets of 'The Other America'
J. B. Lenoir was one of the bravest political voices of his era. He sang against poverty, lynching, the Vietnam War, racism and police violence in Alabama and Mississippi.
Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
Dark was the night and cold was the ground on which Blind Willie Johnson was laid. Yet after his death, his music would streak to the stars on the Voyager and become part of the “music of the spheres.”
Feeling Broken and Blue: The Life and Art of Paul Nicoloff
Blue was a gaunt, emaciated, crazed-looking, street person dressed in torn rags. Blue’s sense of humor was the tiny life-raft that he clung to all his life, amidst the raging seas of his stormy soul. Perhaps that’s why his sense of humor was so brilliantly honed: He needed it so badly.
This article first appeared in the October 1999 issue of Street Spirit.
Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out
In “Hard Times Killing Floor Blues,” Skip James sings for the multitudes forced out of their homes and jobs — locked out of heaven itself and trapped on the killing floor of poverty.
Cold Ground Was My Bed: The Blues and Social Justice
A powerful torrent of “justice blues,” as deep and wide as the Mississippi itself, flows in an unbroken stream from the Depression-era blues of Bessie Smith and Skip James all the way to the 21st century blues of Otis Taylor and Robert Cray.
An Invisible World Made Visible: The Art of Lenny Silverberg / Stirring Art from the Streets of Heartache and Loss
Those on the street have been forced to live close to the bone of a profound and hidden meaning. In their presence, one is close to the truth of the terrifying yet liberating sense of transience which ought to teach us a generosity towards one another, a kind of care and love.
Shining New Light on the Desolate Streets of ‘The Other America’ — Dong Lin's Photographs
In one of Dong Lin’s chilling images, a policeman stops to nudge a homeless man lying on a San Francisco sidewalk, only to find he is already dead, just another accident statistic. The faceless fatalities in our midst are almost never seen. They live and die in a faraway place -- the Other America.
Beautifully Composed Art with a Social Conscience
Christine Hanlon’s beautifully composed images of outcast souls struggling to survive in barren urban landscapes seem to be ripped from today’s news stories about increasing poverty in America. Yet, her deeply felt paintings also are timeless in their portrayal of classic themes explored by great painters through the ages.
Artists Encounter the Poor in Image and Imagination with the Photography of Dorothea Lange
Today’s artists joined with Dorothea Lange to document the side of American life that is forced to live in the shadows — in the brush under an overpass. The writers in the Encounter with Lange project try to give voice to these images and to see the human faces of the poor.
Haunting Art Portrays the Human Face of the Poor
Jonathan Burstein’s reveals the humanity of the homeless people, panhandlers, and down-and-out workers who appear in his paintings like saints walking among us unseen. His art is most beautiful and shot through with transcendence at those moments when it portrays people seemingly crushed to the earth by poverty and hopelessness.