“Politics is to protect truth and beauty.”

Amiri Baraka, famed leader of the Black Arts Movement, was a poet, playwright, jazz critic, and actor. He was also a notorious political revolutionary who did not cease protesting despite arrests and beatings by the Newark police and struggling to install an honest government that would respond to the needs of the black community. He was also an artist. He invited me into his home to show me his paintings, discuss his creative methods and to explain the importance of art in his life. And, in his words, that the only purpose of politics was “to preserve truth and beauty.”

And check out The Writer’s Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers for more than 400 plates of artwork by great writers and the stories behind them.

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