Behold! The Grassroots Philosopher In 1960 while in his early teens, and still known by his given name John A. Brathwaite, he who would some years later change his name to Odimumba Kwamdela, left his native Barbados for London, England. He eventually enlisted in the British Army and served in the Mideast. After military service, he left London for Ontario, Canada. There he freelanced with Toronto newspapers before becoming founding publisher and editor of Spear, reputed to be the first Black magazine published in Canada. "I had big dreams," said he, "of making Spear the Ebony of Canada." Eventually becoming disappointed with what he saw as the limitation of Spear in a nation with too small a Black population, and believing the "controversial" label given to the original edition of his book, Niggers This is Canada, made him the object of governmental harrassment, he exiled himself to New York City. There, around the mid-1970's, he made the decision to discard the name J. Ashton Brathwaite under which he had written and published. Around this time he was also enrolled at the City University of New York (of which he is a Literature and Journalism graduate) as a part-time night student doing full-time studies and holding down full-time day employment in the graphic arts industry of Manhattan. Eventually, Kwamdela also graduated from New York Institute of Technology with the Master of Science in Instructional Technology degree.