In Five First Steps: Suggestions on How Black Americans Might Save Themselves, Vickey Wilcher delivers five short essays that lay out the steps she believes Black Americans from all walks of life will need to take to save themselves from extinction. The essays speak to historical and socio-culture norms that have often led or forced many Black Americans to think of themselves, and to live as less than. Each essay then calls for Black Americans to take specific actions to change the way they think about and treat themselves and one another so that the group is prepared to take the lead in raising itself to equity of personhood, socio-economic equality and the inalienable right to sustained existence.

Through these five essays readers are offered practical, easy to follow suggestions on how to accept and embrace personal and group responsibility for changing past cultural, systemic and oppressive challenges into the building blocks needed to ensure an overall enhancement in the quality and sustainability of life for Black American individuals, families and communities-And as a result, the whole of American Society.