DETROIT, MI – U.G. E. Publishing Division launches the 2nd edition of The Window 2 My Soul by author Yusef Shakur (formerly known as Joseph Ruffin). The second edition has a new forward by Dr. Carl S. Taylor & enticing photos that further brings life to a powerful, dynamic, & compelling story. Dripping from the pages of this political memoir is a complete honest testimony from Yusef Shakur as he invites readers to explore his remarkable journey of tragedy, triumph, and transformation. Yusef accounts the experiences of growing up in a single parent household that was plagued with alcohol and physical abuse. By the tender age of thirteen, Yusef would co-found one of Detroit’s most notorious street gangs Zone 8. Yusef highlights his rambunctious youth with gripping moments, such as being expelled from all Detroit Public Schools while being charged with numerous violent assaults and attempted murder. In prison, before he was the age of 20, Shakur would meet behind bars the father he never knew. The father that had been foreign to Yusef was now determined to reshape his lost son. Not into a hardened criminal, but into a responsible man and leader. After serving nine years in prison, Yusef has returned to Detroit – as a father, community organizer/activist, former Head Start teacher, youth mentor, business owner, author, motivational speaker, and college graduate, and determined to make a positive impact upon the lives of the downtrodden and disenfranchised. Not since the Autobiography of Malcolm X has there been a literary artwork that provides Black America with a manual for re-building the minds of Black males. Yusef Shakur’s story boldly speaks to the social phenomenon of Black men dying en masse during and after America’s crack epidemic. You can purchase this ground-breaking memoir at his bookstore The Urban Network, located at 5740 Grand River… in the neighborhood he once took pride in destroying & is now diligently working “FROM DA BOTTOM UP TO PUT THE ‘NEIGHBOR’ BACK INTO THE HOOD.”

EXPERIENCE/FOOTWORK

01/09-present Lakeshore Economic Coalition Detroit, Michigan Youth

Mentor Consultant

10/05 – 6/08 Southeast Head Start Detroit, Michigan Head Start Teacher

01/05 – 01/06 Y.W.C.A Head Start Inkster, Michigan Fatherhood Outreach Workers

09/03 – 06/05 Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency Highland Park, Michigan Head Start Assistant Teacher

05/03 – 09/03 Wayne Metropolitan Community Action, Agency Hamtramck, Michigan Employment and Training Intern

EDUCATION

1997 General Education Diploma

08/03 – 06/07 Wayne County Community College A.S. Degree- Liberal Arts