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When Crack Was King
- A People's History of a Misunderstood Era
- Narrated by: Donovan X. Ramsey
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
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Publisher's summary
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A “vivid and frank” (NPR) account of the crack cocaine era and a community’s ultimate resilience, told through a cast of characters whose lives illuminate the dramatic rise and fall of the epidemic
“A master class in disrupting a stubborn narrative, a monumental feat for the fraught subject of addiction in Black communities.”—The Washington Post
“A poignant and compelling re-examination of a tragic era in America history . . . insightful . . . and deeply moving.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Just Mercy
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • ONE OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND VULTURE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, She Reads, Electric Lit, The Mary Sue
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we live with today: a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.
When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack’s destruction and devastating legacy: Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and the son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a “crack house”; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, the longtime mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark’s most legendary group of drug traffickers.
Weaving together riveting research with the voices of survivors, When Crack Was King is a crucial reevaluation of the era and a powerful argument for providing historically violated communities with the resources they deserve.
Critic reviews
"A compassionate and urgent story that centers the victims of this superdrug, When Crack Was King is an illuminating look at the devastating, racialized impacts of the U.S. criminal justice system—and a warning for us to do better as more drug epidemics rear their ugly heads.”—Time
“[A] panoramic social history . . . Ramsey aims to give the story of the crack epidemic a human face while telling it from start to finish, a herculean task. By and large he succeeds.”—The New York Times
“[Ramsey] makes a convincing case that government policies criminalized what was essentially a public health crisis, and he busts some of the most pernicious media-generated myths of the epidemic—including the much ballyhooed threat of the ‘crack baby.’”—NPR
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- Narrated by: Kiff Vandenheuvel
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee, Jr., reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism.
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Wow
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By: Ben Bradlee
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New York, New York, New York
- Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
- By: Thomas Dyja
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Thomas Dyja - introduction
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dangerous, filthy, and falling apart, garbage piled on its streets and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble; New York’s terrifying, if liberating, state of nature in 1978 also made it the capital of American culture. Over the next thirty-plus years, though, it became a different place - kinder and meaner, richer and poorer, more like America and less like what it had always been.
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OMG...right on 👍👍👍👍👍
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By: Thomas Dyja
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Don't Shoot
- One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America
- By: David M. Kennedy
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Gang- and drug-related inner-city violence, with its attendant epidemic of incarceration, is the defining crime problem in our country. In some neighborhoods in America, one out of every 200 young black men is shot to death every year, and few initiatives of government and law enforcement have made much difference. But when David Kennedy, a self-taught and then-unknown criminologist, engineered the "Boston Miracle" in the mid-1990s, he pointed the way toward what few had imagined: a solution.
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Tragically Under-Appreciated
- By Nathan Witkin on 12-02-22
By: David M. Kennedy
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The Violence Inside Us
- A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy
- By: Chris Murphy
- Narrated by: Chris Murphy
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Is America destined to always be a violent nation? This sweeping history by U.S. senator Chris Murphy explores the origins of our violent impulses, the roots of our obsession with firearms, and the mythologies that prevent us from confronting our national crisis. In many ways, the United States sets the pace for other nations to follow. Yet on the most important human concern - the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from physical harm - America isn’t a leader.
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America needs more white men like Chris Murphy.
- By jnlv68 on 09-20-20
By: Chris Murphy
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Please Scream Inside Your Heart
- Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the Year That Wouldn't End
- By: Dave Pell
- Narrated by: John Parsons, Peter Coyote, L. J. Ganser, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Please Scream Inside Your Heart is a time capsule; a real-time ride through the maddening hell that was the 2020 news cycle - when historic turmoil and media mania stretched American sanity, democracy, and toilet paper. Who better to examine this unhinged period in all of its twists and turns than news addict Dave Pell, a.k.a. the internet’s managing editor?
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Couldn’t stop listening!!
- By Rofar4 on 11-16-21
By: Dave Pell
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Witness to the Revolution
- Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul
- By: Clara Bingham
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 18 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As the 1960s drew to a close, the United States was coming apart at the seams. From August 1969 to August 1970, the nation witnessed 9,000 protests and 84 acts of arson or bombings at schools across the country. It was the year of the My Lai massacre investigation, the Cambodia invasion, Woodstock, and the Moratorium to End the War. The American death toll in Vietnam was approaching 50,000, and the ascendant counterculture was challenging nearly every aspect of American society.
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great perspective on an era
- By james on 04-02-18
By: Clara Bingham
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My Vanishing Country
- A Memoir
- By: Bakari Sellers
- Narrated by: Bakari Sellers
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What J. D. Vance did for Appalachia with Hillbilly Elegy, CNN analyst and one of the youngest state representatives in South Carolina history Bakari Sellers does for the rural South, in this important book that illuminates the lives of America’s forgotten Black working-class men and women. Part memoir, part historical and cultural analysis, My Vanishing Country is an eye-opening journey through the South's past, present, and future.
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What America Needs NOW!!!
- By Unknown on 05-22-20
By: Bakari Sellers
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The Book of Pride
- LGBTQ Heroes Who Changed the World
- By: Mason Funk
- Narrated by: Mason Funk, Robin Miles, Eileen Stevens, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Book of Pride captures the true story of the gay rights movement from the 1960s to the present, through richly detailed, stunning interviews with the leaders, activists, and ordinary people who witnessed the movement and made it happen. These individuals fought battles both personal and political, often without the support of family or friends, frequently under the threat of violence and persecution.
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Pure Joy for EVERYONE
- By Micah D on 06-03-19
By: Mason Funk
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Set the Night on Fire
- L.A. in the Sixties
- By: Mike Davis, Jon Wiener
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Los Angeles in the '60s was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power - where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture.
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An amazingly comprehensive story of a critical decade.
- By Manifesta on 11-29-20
By: Mike Davis, and others
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High-Risers
- Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to 23 towers and a population of 20,000 - all of it packed onto just 70 acres a few blocks from Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource - it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed.
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Little mention of accountability of the people getting the housing
- By Steve D Renz on 05-15-18
By: Ben Austen
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Boom!
- Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today
- By: Tom Brokaw
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Boom! One minute it was Ike and the man in the grey flannel suit, and the next minute it was time to "turn on, tune in, drop out". While Americans were walking on the moon, Americans were dying in Vietnam. Nothing was beyond question, and there were far fewer answers than before.
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boring survey of a generation
- By Andy on 01-01-08
By: Tom Brokaw
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Stupid Black Men
- How to Play the Race Card - and Lose
- By: Larry Elder
- Narrated by: Larry Elder
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Stupid Black Men, Larry Elder takes on the mind-set of those people who always capture the most media attention - as well as masses of public money - people who say that racism is the root of all problems and who end up hurting precisely those they claim to be helping.
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New fan
- By Levonne Burris on 07-15-19
By: Larry Elder
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What listeners say about When Crack Was King
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Carolyn
- 03-23-24
It's a harrowing account of an epidemic
I loved that the book focused on real people caught up in many aspects of this epidemic and how some still managed to survive.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-18-23
Essential chronicling of man-made epidemic
This book puts an era in African American history, often never fully understood or deliberately misrepresented, into individual context. Providing a broad understanding of what led up to it, what transpired during, and the beginnings of emergence from it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Roberta S. White
- 04-01-24
Done by Design
If ever you've referred to someone addicted to Crack as a Crackhead, this review is for you. If ever you voiced or felt Crack was the Negroes problem, this review is for you. If your response to the Opioid crisis is, "We must intervene NOW," and you're old enough to have spoken our during the Crack Era, but didn't, this review is for you!
This story is laced with statistics, facts, details, and real-life examples of those who contributed to one of the most destructive eras in Black American History next to slavery, Jim Crow, and integration Such as failure to address the root issues of infusing a people into a culture deemed to exclude them. I have no idea what led me to this book other than the Holy Spirit, and I'm ever so grateful! This text gives context to the communities I serve as a Hospice Chaplain and Minister of the Gospel. As someone who's family has been shook by issues with drug abuse to include Crack, this book has given insight into the demon that robbed a lot of my people to include my extended family known as the community.
THIS IS A MUST READ!
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- all our stories
- 11-08-23
An excellent must read book for people who care about current political times.
Thank you for this excellent work.
This book makes evident that the real criminals are not locked behind bars but left free to stand on the corpses of victims of self medicating (drug use). These are the criminals voted into political office by duped American voters. Historically they knowingly allowed drugs into the US. Back then it was drugs now it’s guns
The gangster rappers and black movie makers had more impact in decreasing the crack epidemic than Nancy Raven’s “Just say no” slogan. As well meaning as she might have been she just didn’t “know” enough to make a difference. The real difference was made by individuals and communities whose lives were directly affected by political manipulation and the targeted war on people rather than drugs.
An excellent must read book for people who care about these current political times. Remember history is repeating itself.
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- S. Davis
- 08-09-23
Drugs and community
Thank you for writing this book. This helps to explain how crack and government destroyed our neighborhoods.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-01-23
Good but flawed
Really informative read full of important and all too often overlooked information. The cultural conversation on the crack epidemic being reframed as a moral panic was enlightening and the analysis of that panics effect on the political environment was top notch. That said the personal approach to some of the storytelling meant that we were often moved around in time and subjected to a lot of detail that to me seemed to distract.
The performance wasn’t great and was full of poorly mastered punch ins and volume swells that were SUPER distracting.
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- HighPeak
- 01-07-24
Intriguing account of the 80’s and 90’s crack era through different lenses
The author describes the era via several different characters and manages to enlighten the reader with scenes and realities that we were not subjected to. This allows you to develop empathy and understanding to many aspects that are hard to describe in a non fiction book Also great survey of different writings, approaches and political opinions with regards to drugs through that period.
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- Shina M
- 07-13-23
Wow! Wow! Wow!
It brought me back to my childhood. To the things I saw or heard. Crack houses. Crack vials on the streets. The Just Say No Campaign to the Dare program they forced on us in school and still to this day in front of Dollar Tree stores. Just Wow! Blown away at this book! It was everything. Vividly…well written.
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- lawrence fauntleroy
- 09-07-23
Amazing!! Riveting!!
This was an amazing book and from the personal stories I was able to understand the bigger picture so much better! Bravo👏🏽
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- Cool Cat
- 10-01-23
Very good history and analysis
The following of the 4 characters.
The history and truth about the crack epidemic.
A new way of seeing the reality and the truth and fiction.
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