John Legend Making Strides in Love & Harmony

by Patricia Britt

July is the month of our American Independence Day. I think John Legend is a young American in the spotlight working towards change in the Criminal Justice system spreading love on the way.

I saw John Legend perform several years ago at the Lansing, Michigan Commonground Festival, and enjoyed watching the beginning of his climb to stardom. Since then he's made proud strides in love & harmony for America, and the world, showing a bias for a us to come together. 

Although I've never talked to him, it's obvious he's not content with being a star making money to simply enrich his own life, he cares about his peers trapped in a cycle of poverty, and violence that leads to incarceration. His organization is one of many studying the problem of incarceration, and taking concrete action where possible. Time will tell his ultimate impact on a growing situation that needs to be reversed when it costs more to keep an individual incarcerated that to send them to college and be a part of society.

Yesterday I was watching www.tonyevans.com on the Impact network speak about Kingdom Men. He compared God to the commissioner position in the NFL (July 29, 2017 broadcast), and Kingdom Men following bible guidelines as the indisputable rule book, with pertinent statistics on current American culture. John Legend is a Kingdom Man making a difference. He's not ready for sainthood, but everything he does seems to stem from love, and follow loves guidelines from his romantic compositions to his choice to marry his mate and build a family, and help others along the way.

So the next time they broadcast OJ twiddling his thumbs as the model of today's black man, think of John Legend and Tony Evans whom you have to seek out absorb the wisdom of a love song, or the sermon of a regimented life for success. Tony Evans (Book: No More Excuses) might be a conservative, but wisdom is on all sides if you look for it.

His lastest song "Surefire" is thought provoking, and haunting. Lets pay attention, and hold up John's collaborative goals, and buy his music, and support his projects, because he's a young man with a positive direction, a distinct voice,  who knows what partnership is ... "cards on the table we're both showing hearts ..." A lovely lyric from the song "All of Me."

The 1978 Christmas season was a real gift. The piano is John Legend's instrument of expresssion. If music was once again funded in the schools, how long would it take to reverse the trend of idleness, and turn paupers into princes? Please bring back the love songs, and the vehicles for creation so that the object of intention is unity.

2017 Copyright Zimation Arts & Letters Ink


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Legend_discography

https://twitter.com/johnlegend

http://letsfreeamerica.com/news/



Songs:


Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington

Sonny Side of the Street by Dizzy Gillespie

Fair Thee Well, Fair Weather Friend by Isley Jasper Isley

You Really Got a Hold On Me by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

Rock With You by Michael Jackson

1000 X's O's (Nothin But Love ) by Prince

Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer

Love Is By Common

Jesus Walks by Kanye West

Walk on By by Dionne Warwick

El Amigo by Romeo Santos ft. Julio Iglesias

I Need Love by LL Cool J

Try Again by Aliyah

Ai No Corrida by Quincy Jones

Lady by Kenny Rogers

Easy by Demetria Mckinney

It's You by Swizz Beatz feat. Alicia Keys

Visions by Stevie Wonder

Addictive Love by Bebe & Cece Winans


Quotes: 

Cinema was my rite of passage by John Singleton

If a father doesn't care enough to stay with his children, then where is the love, something to think about in solitude. by Patricia Britt

I believe in humanitarian capitalism, and there are good people on Wall Street. 
by Ambassador Andrew Young

Financial Freedom is a mental, emotional, educational process. by Robert Kiyosaki

Raising a family is difficult enough. But it's even more difficult for single parents struggling to make ends meet. They don't need more obstacles. They need more opportunities. by Bill Richardson


Quotes by Nelson Mandella - Mandiba:

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

You know, you can only lead them from behind.

Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.

It always seems impossible until it's done.

http://letsfreeamerica.com/