Richard A. Salem’s life journey
has taken him from journalism to conflict mediation and, most recently, to a fusion of
those two disciplines - including his most recent book,
“Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda,” just off the press.
Born in New York City, N.Y., Salem
chose journalism as his path in school as an undergraduate at Antioch College in Ohio and
graduate at Columbia University. He worked as
a general assignment reporter for the Washington Post, a journalism lecturer at American
University, and the publisher of a newsletter about small businesses in Washington, D.C.
However, Salem soon detoured to a
position working for President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” in the
Small Business Administration’s Economic Opportunity Loan Program.
That position exposed Salem to the
issue of race relations that eventually led him to a career in conflict management. Salem has worked as a mediator in the U.S. and
abroad since 1968 when he became the Midwest director of the Community Relations Service
for the U.S. Department of Justice, an agency that helps communities address racial and
ethnic strife.
Salem mediated the Skokie Nazi
conflict in Illinois, the Kent State University dispute over construction on the site of
the 1973 student shootings, and numerous police-community, prison, school desegregation
and other civil rights conflicts. In 1973 he
received a citation from President Richard Nixon for his mediation during the takeover of
Wounded Knee at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
But Salem’s passion for writing
did not dissipate when his journalism career ended. He
co-authored a law text, “A Student’s Guide to Mediation and the Law,” and
wrote several articles on mediation which have been published in books and journals.
Between 1979 and 1995, Salem made 15
extended trips to South Africa where he pioneered training in community conflict
management. He subsequently trained and
consulted in six countries in East and West Africa, in Northern Ireland and El Salvador.
His work in Rwanda led to the
publication of “Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda.”
Salem was sent to Rwanda by the U.S.
State Department in 1997 as a trainer in community conflict. While visiting a Rwandan
trauma treatment center that was in need of additional funding, Salem saw drawings of the
1994 genocide in Rwanda, by the children who survived it.
“When I first looked at the
drawings, I saw how dramatically the children remembered the trauma… the visions of
life-threatening events that they still see everyday and that keep them
Salem responded quickly, collecting
works from over 50 Rwandan children. “Witness
to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda” is a compilation of the artwork of those child
survivors. The foreword was written by Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Rwandan
ambassador to the U.S., Richard Sezibera, M.D., contributed a chapter. Salem’s wife Greta, a professor of political
science at Alverno College in Milwaukee also contributed.
“It was a labor of love for a
lot of people,” said Salem.
Salem, who lives in Evanston, Ill.,
is now the Conflict Management Initiative’s president.
He expressed his hope that “Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda” will move its readers
to “decide to contribute toward a peaceful end to violence somewhere in the world.”
In fact, anyone who buys the book
will be doing just that. Royalties from the
book will be used for the treatment of trauma in Rwanda.
The 48 page book is available for $19.95 by calling Friendship Press at
1-800- 889-5753. Or buy online at
www.cmi-salem.org.
“Trauma is not self-healing…it
can cripple many. So resources are needed to treat children and adults in Rwanda,”
Salem said.
-end-
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