The American black is a unique individual, with a unique past and history that needs to be preserved. The American black is not a saint, neither is he a ghost. But he is flesh and blood, a human being that needs to be respected and treated fairly. But the treatment must first come through the manner in which the American black presents himself or herself to the world. Fifty-Five Positive Steps Black People Can Take to Preserve Themselves into the 21st Century provides psychological, physical and spiritual suggestions on how American blacks can empower themselves and therefore empower the race, through one another. Always with an eye on history and a hope for communal unity of some kind, Fifty-Five Steps encourages American black people to do two things: to remember their past, where they come from, always, and to become well rounded people where they are now. And the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Blacks can be all that they can be, love themselves and their history pridefully and still exist in the climate of modern America. Lastly, Fifty-Five Steps was written in reaction to a growing belief that "blackness" is dead or dying, that black Americans have been absorbed or assimilated. On the contrary, Fifty-Five Steps asks the black readers to love one another and to come together in a final stand for the integrity of essential blackness.