Spirit and Soul

About the Book

Spirit and Soul: Odyssey of a Black Man in America, Volume One, an engaging, edifying autobiography by Theodore Kirkland, offers critical insight and politically cognizant commentary on the past, future and real-time reality of race relations in America.

His long career in law enforcement – some 39 years total as a military police officer, Buffalo police officer, New York State parole board commissioner and adjunct professor – begins by happenstance in the Air Force. Instead of being sent to gunnery school as he requested, he is ordered to report to the Army Military Police Academy in Camp Gordon, Georgia.

Kirkland’s narrative voice in this page turner is clear, self-effacing and relentlessly candid – unapologetic for the black and white of his experience, and cautionary in his instruction for navigation through the gray. Yet in every syllable, there is a remarkable, palpable love – for his family, friends and community – and unyielding commitment to upholding the Constitutional promise that “all men are created equal.”

Spirit and Soul: Odyssey of a Black Man in America, Volume One is at once witty and wise; poignant, wistful and meticulously illustrative of an American perspective too often shadowed by stereotypes that contend that Black men contribute primarily to the prison population. It also is an important chronology of the evolution of African American life and experience from Jim Crow to contemporary “Post-racial America.”

About the Author

Theodore Kirkland is married to the former Winona Washington; they have three daughters, and a grandson. A Korean War veteran, Kirkland’s community activism beganin1961 leading a group of Black workers to file racial discrimination charges against their employer; this action was repeated in 1972 when he led a group of Black police officers to file racial discrimination charges against the Buffalo Police and Fire Departments resulting in the hiring of the first Puerto Ricans; elimination of the quota for women police officers; and the increase of women and Black officers in the force. New York Governor, Hugh Carey, appointed him to the New York State Parole Board in 1978. This was followed by being appointed adjunct professor at the University of Buffalo and Hunter College in New York City. He is the recipient of awards and citations from community groups, youth gangs, prison inmates; Black Business and Professional Women; International Christian Women’s Council; Hamlin Park; Male Youth of Calvary CME Church; Urban League; PUSH; ACLU; NAACP; SCLC; Black Firefighters; Afro-American Police Association; the YMCA of Greater Buffalo; the President’s Award from the Empire State Federation of Women’s Clubs; and cited by the President of the United States and the House of Representatives. He appears in Who’s Who Among Black Americans in its 1980-1981 and in the 1996-1997 edition of Who’s Who Among African Americans. He has a BA and Master Degree and is a frequent columnist with the Challenger Newspaper, and the Criterion Newspaper.