The Michael Jackson story has arguably been the most compelling of 2009 and more than once has caused me to rearrange my own writing schedule to help clarify various aspects of the iconic entertainer and philanthropist’s legacy. Towards that effort, I have written the following blogs, articles, and poems regarding Jackson with the most recent listed first:

1) Work and Soul in Michael Jackson's This Is It (Special 4-part article series)
2) Sold-Out Michael Jackson Tickets and Yearning for Something More (article)
3) The World Lets Go While Holding on to Michael Jackson (article)
4) A Moonwalking Giant Lies Down to Rest (article)
5) Michael Jackson Legacies of a Globetrotting Moonwalking Philanthropist (article)
6) Notes for an Elegy in the Key of Michael #1 and #2 (poems)
7) To Walk a Lifetime in Michael Jackson's Moccasins (blog)

The word ‘legend’ is at the end of this blog’s title instead of the word “story” because the subject lived such a multi-faceted global life that no single set of story-lines can fully encompass or represent it. I grew up watching Michael Jackson grow up–– and so have spent a lot of days and a fair number of years both cheering him on and absorbing inspiration from his many phenomenal triumphs.

I had always appreciated his music but didn't know how much a part of my world it had become until his death, June 25, 2009. At that point, I sat other projects aside and began to write my various memories and interpretations of his life. I also began to chronicle as a Red Room and AuthorsDen author, and as the National African-American Art Examiner, the public and media's responses to Jackson's passing.

There is no question that it was infinitely more challenging for Michael Jackson to live his life than it has been for me to compose the fragments of it that I have. My challenge has been, and remains, to sort through an overload of information and misinformation in order to communicate as much truth and significance as possible. Jackson’s challenge was to survive for as long as possible the fickle prickly embrace of fame, the raging firestorms of controversy that all but devoured his entire being, and his own attempts to give as much of himself to the world as possible.

Hopefully, some measure of what I have written reflects the best of who and what Michael Jackson truly was as a creative artist and human being. Most of the articles listed above are on the Examiner News site at: http://www.examiner.com/x-16968-AfricanAmerican-Art-Examiner and others can be found on Red Room and AuthorsDen. I hope you enjoy them.

--by Aberjhani
author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
and ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love