Looking Back to Move Forward: Reconciling the Past - Liberating the Future

Kelvin De'Marcus Allen has crafted a luminous narrative that speaks volumes to those of us who came of age during and immediately after the civil rights movement. Kelvin grew up as the "bastard child," the beleaguered fruit of a poor, single mother, and a father who treated him as if he were invisible. One of seven children, the struggling family lived in a rundown, wood-frame house with plumbing so bad the family often had to relieve themselves in a hole in the backyard. W.E.B. Dubois' "The Souls Of Black Folk" and Gordon Park's "The Learning Tree" come to mind while reading Kelvin's slim elegant volume. Some may think the comparison is a stretch - Dubois. The "agitator-prophet," and Parks, the quintessential Renaissance man, are two of America's greatest heroes - perhaps Kelvin's greatest work is yet to come. Kelvin De'Marcus Allen is a graduate of North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C., and holds a Master of Arts degree in Leadership & Liberal Studies from Duquesne University.