:Abdul Alkalimat

Born as Gerald Arthur McWorter in Chicago's Cook County Hospital,[http://eblackchicago.org/hwaa.html Abdul Alkalimat bio], eblackchicago.org. he lived with his family in the Frances Cabrini Houses until 1953, when they moved to the city's West Side.{{cite book |last=Fuerst |first=J. S. |title=When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago |year=2005 |orig-year=2003 |publisher=Greenwood |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=0-252-07213-8|page=133 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tm9hMkardSgC&pg=PA133 |access-date=December 27, 2011 }} In a 2003 interview, Alkalimat remembered his childhood in public housing:

{{blockquote|Though I remember ... people outside the project saying, "Ah, you're living on welfare, kinda." But I think I had a childhood second to none. I remember those years as golden years, frankly. I cherish having grown up in Cabrini.}}

Alkalimat attended Ottawa University, where he earned a B.A. in sociology and philosophy in 1963. He completed his M.A. in sociology at the University of Chicago in 1966, and earned a Ph.D. in sociology there in 1974.{{cite web |url=https://secure.las.uiuc.edu/CvStorage/documents/users/mcworter.pdf |title=Abdul Alkalimat (Gerald A. McWorter) |access-date=December 27, 2011 }}

During the late 1960s, he helped create the Institute of the Black World (IBW) in Atlanta with professors Vincent Harding and Stephen Henderson and other student activists, including Howard Dodson, A. B. Spellman, William Strickland, and Council Taylor. The IBW became "the most dynamic black 'think tank' of the era", according to Peniel E. Joseph, assistant professor of Africana studies at Stony Brook University.{{cite book |editor-last=Joseph |editor-first=Peniel E. |title=The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era |year=2006 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=0-415-94595-X |page=268 |last=Joseph |first=Peniel E. |author-link= |chapter=Black Studies, Student Activism, and the Black Power Movement |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jnuI5c9lUEwC&pg=PA268 |access-date=December 27, 2011 }}

In the early 1970s, Alkalimat established Peoples College, a black nationalist think tank. Acknowledged as a founder of Black Studies,{{cite web|url=https://www.iun.edu/news/2019/blk-studies-50year-event.htm|title=IU Northwest celebrates 50 years of Black Studies|work=IU Northwest News|publisher=Indiana University Northwest|date=January 29, 2019|access-date=February 23, 2022}} he wrote Introduction to Afro-American Studies: A Peoples College Primer, first published in 1984, which has become a popular text and gone through several editions.{{cite book |last=Bush |first=Roderick |author-link=Roderick D. Bush |title=The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line |year=2009 |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia |isbn=978-1-59213-572-1 |page=47 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=phnJYxEM5FcC&pg=PA47 |access-date=March 25, 2012 }}

Alkalimat helped to organize the Illinois Council for Black Studies, and in 1982 he hosted the annual meeting of the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS). He was elected the NCBS chairman, but the organization's board questioned the results and called for a new election the following year to determine whether Alkalimat's ascension to the post was legitimate. In an election that many members considered confusing, Alkalimat was voted out. New voting rules were adopted by the board that made the results retroactive, stripping Alkalimat of his chairmanship.{{cite book |editor1-last=Gordon |editor1-first=Lewis R. |editor1-link=Lewis Gordon |editor2-last=Gordon |editor2-first=Jane Anna |title=A Companion to African-American Studies |year=2006 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |location=Malden, Mass. |isbn=0-631-23516-7 |page=41 |last=Jones |first=Rhett |chapter=Dreams, Nightmares, and Realities: Afro-American Studies at Brown University, 1969–1968 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DOvtQ3mrd4wC&pg=PA41 |access-date=March 25, 2012 }}

In 1991, Alkalimat wrote Malcolm X for Beginners. He and his publisher, Writers and Readers Press, were sued by Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, and Pathfinder Press, which has exclusive rights to publish Malcolm X's speeches. Shabazz and Pathfinder alleged the book contained quotations from Malcolm X without permission. Alkalimat and his publisher said that the book's quotations were permitted under the fair use doctrine.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/10/style/chronicle-255091.html |title=Chronicle |last=Anderson |first=Susan Heller |date=July 10, 1991 |work=The New York Times |access-date=December 27, 2011 }}{{cite news |title=Dispute over Malcolm X Book Pits Betty Shabazz Against Chicago-Based Activist |last=Boyd |first=Herb |author-link=Herb Boyd |date=July 20, 1991 |work=New York Amsterdam News }} The matter was settled out of court, with Alkalimat relinquishing all royalties from the book.{{cite web |url=http://www.brothermalcolm.net/studyguide/aastatement.html |title=A Statement by Abdul Alkalimat |last=Alkalimat |first=Abdul |date=July 15, 1991 |publisher=Malcolm X: A Research Site |access-date=December 27, 2011 }}{{cite book |last=Rickford |first=Russell J. |author-link=Russell J. Rickford |title=Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X |year=2003 |publisher=Sourcebooks |location=Naperville, Ill. |isbn=1-4022-0171-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bettyshabazzrema00rick/page/464 464] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/bettyshabazzrema00rick/page/464 }}

• Introduction to Afro-American Studies (1984), Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press (available [https://web.archive.org/web/20170703185708/http://eblackstudies.org/intro/contents.htm online])
• Harold Washington and the Crisis of Black Power in Chicago (1989), Chicago: Twenty-First Century Books (with Douglas C. Gills)
• Malcolm X for Beginners (1990), New York: Writers and Readers Press (available for [http://www.brothermalcolm.net/studyguide/writers.pdf download] in PDF format)
• Job?Tech: The Technological Revolution and Its Impact on Society (1995), Chicago: Twenty-First Century Books (with Douglas C. Gills and Kate Williams)
• The African American Experience in Cyberspace: A Resource Guide to the Best Websites on Black Culture and History (2004) Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press
• eBlack Studies (2004), Chicago: Twenty-First Century Books
• {{cite web|title=Cyberpower|url=http://www.publicsphereproject.org/content/cyberpower|date=2008|website=Public Sphere Project|publisher=Schuler|access-date=October 27, 2015}} (with Kate Williams)
• Revolutionary Ubuntu: The shackdwellers and poor people of South Africa, eBlack Studies, 2009 (available for [https://libcom.org/library/revolutionary-ubuntu-shackdwellers-movement-south-africa download] in PDF format)
• [https://brill.com/view/title/26771 Black Toledo: A Documentary History of the African American Experience in Toledo, Ohio] (2017) Leiden & Boston: Brill
• The History of Black Studies (October 2021), London: Pluto Press{{cite book|url=https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745344225/the-history-of-black-studies/|title=The History of Black Studies|first=Abdul|last=Alkalimat|publisher=Pluto Press|location=London|isbn=9780745344225|date=2021}}
• [https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/dialectics-of-liberation-the-african-liberation-support-movement-paperback_abdul-alkalimat/35434334/#edition=64153167 Dialectics of Liberation: The African Liberation Support Movement] (2022), Africa World Press

{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• [http://alkalimat.org Official website]
• [http://www.afro.illinois.edu/people/mcworter Abdul Alkalimat's faculty biography]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170630200308/http://www.brothermalcolm.net/ Malcolm X: A Research Site]

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