(Above, Freedmen of the 1868 Louisiana State Government, during Reconstruction) (I began this perspective on our current times before the tumultuous events of the last week. Those, I am not yet prepared to address.) People speak of this moment of political protest and activism, so momentous, sustained and focused on systemic racism and all its manifestations, that it may herald the 3rd Reconstruction. That term posits our current struggle along the continuum of the unfinis

Can anyone stand in front of Picasso’s Guernica and not see the horror of war? Not have a visceral reaction to the impact on the community? Can anyone stand in the gash in the ground that is Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial and not feel the loss, the pain, the division that war wrought? “I imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up, an initial violence and pain that in time would heal.” Artist statement, Maya Lin. Could anyone see Kara Walker’s 'A Subtlety,