As a speaker, dramatist, literary and music critic and reviewer, interviewer, short story writer, photographer, editor, poet, and essayist, Kalamu ya Salaam has aided in the struggle for liberation of his people since his youth. As a journalist, activist, and emissary he has facilitated communication between Afro-Americans and communities all over the world by his travels to such diverse places as Tanzania, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Barbados, and Surinam.

He places himself in the tradition of Alexander Crummell and W.E.B. DuBois as a black humanist who ascribes to the development of l'homa universale "the all-sided man." He believes "It is important for us to understand that in today's world our most valuable vocation must be to be men and women to the fullest extent possible, and everything else can and will follow in due time." He lives up to his own credo and is...