Success does not come easy to Allen, but at every stage of his life, his persistence and determination enable him to move forward through challenges and to learn something important from every obstacle he encounters. From his early years coping with the effects of segregation on his family and his education to his later years as a leader of urban agriculture, Allen is able to take something valuable away from every difficult moment. Even his experiences with thyroid cancer taught him a valuable lesson: because a childhood radiation treatment for a skin condition rendered him vulnerable to cancer, Allen learned never to use unnecessarily complicated technology to solve a problem when a simpler solution would do. His experiences with racism were an opportunity for Allen to learn more about compassion and tolerance than a reason to become bitter. By marrying Cyndy Bussler, a white woman whose parents were initially unsupportive of their marriage, Allen learned that his mother-in-law’s resistance was a result of her lack of awareness more than any kind of malicious feeling towards him.