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Arts & Culture page

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Ron Casanova at the PPEHRC National Truth Commission
Photograph by POWER.

For our very first featured artist on our new Arts & Culture page, we are so pleased to be able to share with you the work of our dear friend and fellow freedom fighter Ron Casanova. Among his many, many accomplishments, Ron is a brilliant artist, a published author, a veteran in the struggle to end poverty, a founder of the New York City-based organization Artists For A Better America, and a core leader in the School of Arts & Culture of the University of the Poor - the educational arm of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Additionally, Ron has served as Vice President of the National Union of the Homeless, Editor of the Union of the Homeless National News, and former director of the Kansas City Union of the Homeless. He has worked as a house manager for Dignity Housing, an organizer of special events for the Employment Project in Philadelphia, an AIDS counselor, and as a drugs couselor for juvenile offenders. His book Each One Teach One is available for purchase, and another book is in the works.

Ron lives in New York City where he continues to use his work and his voice to contribute to the growing movement to end poverty in this country. His current work is dedicated to addressing the ongoing battle being waged for the right to health in America, and the urgent and rapidly escalating healthcare crisis faced by millions of Americans - a crisis which has reached epidemic proportions and continues to threaten countless lives.

All paintings featured below are by artist Ron Casanova.
Please note that while some of the paintings below are not currently available for sale,
Ron has many other paintings that ARE available for purchase; please don't hesitate to
contact him if you're interested in potentially purchasing one or more of his paintings.

Please click on thumbnail to see larger image.

      

    

   
                                                                                                 or Thousands Will Die!          

    

Peace Love Understanding

Each One Teach One:
Up & Out of Poverty, Memoirs of a Street Activist; By Ron Casanova
Edited by Stephen Blackburn; published by Curbstone Press; October 1, 1996;

ISBN 978-1-880684-37-5; available for purchase at Curbstone Press & Amazon.com. Click here to read an excerpt.

 
From the back cover of Each One Teach One:
Each One Teach One chronicles Ron Casanova's struggle out of poverty, homelessness, and drug addiction to find dignity and purpose in his life. Through his own dramatic awakening, this Black, Puerto Rican activist ultimately finds his answer in helping other people.

Born into a dysfunctional family and placed into an orphanage on Staten Island at an early age, Casanova faced overwhelming odds. His story illuminates some of the major events of our time, including the "police riot" at Tompkins Square Park, the "Housing Now" march of the homeless on Washington, and community takeovers of housing in Kansas City, New York, and Philadelphia.

Underlying Each One Teach One, with its vivid cast of characters and intimate descriptions of Harlem and other urban areas, is the profound sense that no matter what your circumstance, you can use your past experience to help others. Ultimately, Casanova's story is a message of hope for the future and for the possibility of self-sufficiency and self-empowerment for each individual.

As Casanova writes: "Each One Teach One will reveal to others that once you are fully awake, you can appreciate the beauty of life and its rewards. But this will only happen when you make up your mind that poverty in all of its forms is not the way anyone should live, that you have to understand the need to fight to save your life and the lives of others - to get Up and Out of Poverty Now!"

Ron Casanova has served as Vice President of the National Union of the Homeless, Editor of the Union of the Homeless National News, and former director of the Kansas City Union of the Homeless. He has worked as a house manager for Dignity Housing, an organizer of special events for the Employment Project in Philadelphia, an AIDS counselor, and as a drugs couselor for juvenile offenders. He currently lives in New York City.

MANY THANKS TO OUR FRIEND RON CASANOVA FOR SHARING HIS BEAUTIFUL PAINTINGS WITH US!!  WE HOPE TO ADD MORE EXAMPLES OF CAS' WORK IN THE COMING DAYS AND WEEKS, SO PLEASE CHECK BACK AGAIN!

And lastly, this goes out you to Cas, our dear friend and our brother in struggle, from all of us from POWER: we send our deepest thanks, gratitude, & love. Thank you for never giving up, never giving in, and for daring to love - despite all odds - and for teaching the rest of us to do the same. Among so many other things. You inspire us always.

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