[1] In 1964, during Freedom Summer, she served as an SNCC field secretary, and married civil-rights activist Bob Moses; they divorced in 1966.
[6][7][8] Described by the author as an "intentionally aggressive polemic", the book derives its title from a Dogon legend of an incomplete and destructive being rejected by its creator.
[16] Citing both the centuries-long history of slavery and more recent examples like the Tuskegee study, Ani argued that Europeans and white Americans have an "enormous capacity for the perpetration of physical violence against other cultures" that had resulted in "antihuman, genocidal" treatment of blacks.
[16][17] Philip Higgs, in African Voices in Education, describes Yurugu as an "excellent delineation of the ethics of harmonious coexistence between human beings", but cites the book's "overlooking of structures of social inequality and conflict that one finds in all societies, including indigenous ones," as a weakness.
[18] Stephen Howe accuses Ani of having little interest in actual Africa (beyond romance) and challenges her critique of "Eurocentric" logic since she invests heavily in its usage in the book.