Abdul Alkalimat

Abdul Alkalimat (Gerald McWorter) is a founder of the field of Black Studies and author of many books and papers about Black liberation. He wrote the first college textbook for the field, Introduction to Afro-American Studies, which has seen seven editions, the last one free and online. A lifelong scholar-activist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, he has lectured, taught, and directed academic programs across the US, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and China. Two of his early contributions were serving as chair of the Chicago chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and co-founding in 1967 the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC). He is now professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Photo by Katarina P. Aarsnes.