Nonfiction: When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey

The title of today's book is what first caught my attention. What motivated me to actually pick it up and buy it was the description, which promised to tell the histories and experiences of four different individuals during the crack epidemic, alongside the drug's varied and intense history in this country. Donovan X. Ramsey's When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era explores exactly what happened, gives detailed accounts of the people who suffered the most, while also looking at who is responsible, and how we can stop something like this from happening again.

Genre, Themes, History: This is a nonfiction book that starts in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Era, and when the Nixon administration made the decision to focus on how best to deal with two of its biggest enemies, which were those that were antiwar, and Black people. The book continues to move through the 70s and 80s, which saw the emergence of crack, a cheaply made and cheap to obtain drug that would tear apart many communities of color across the country. Alongside the facts, figures, and history, are the stories of four people: Elgin from Yonkers, Lennie from Los Angeles, Kurt from Baltimore, and Shawn from Newark. Not all of them were crack users, or crack dealers, but they all have intimate knowledge of how the epidemic affected their respective communities, with many of those effects hitting incredibly close to home.

My Verdict: Sure, a history lesson on the crack epidemic has the potential to be a tough (and upsetting) read. And while the addition of the personal stories makes for a nice break, while also offering much appreciated and fascinating insight, these stories also have the potential of adding to the overall distress, and despair, over such a subject. With that being said, I do not regret having chosen this book as one of my nonfiction selections for the year. Though it is a tough subject, it is also important to acknowledge what happened, how it happened, and to whom it happened. Well-researched and well-organized, this book is a thorough history of one of the nation's roughest moments, one that could easily be forgotten, and then tragically repeated.

Favorite Moment: In 1994, John Ehrlichman, counsel and assistant to the president for domestic affairs under Nixon, admitted in an interview with Harper's Magazine that they used drugs as a way to vilify Black people and disrupt their communities. Feels weird to put this down as a 'favorite' moment, but it feels oddly validating to see it printed out (again) in black and white.

Recommended Reading: I recommend Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond.