Chapter 11: Poverty and Education

A large portion of my journey into manhood took place in the early ’80s through the mid-’90s, during the drug epidemic era in Baltimore, particularly West Baltimore where I resided. There was a staunch belief that the CIA infiltrated drugs in the Black and Hispanic communities; especially, crack cocaine which spread quickly across the country (Bourgois, 1996). The urban landscape was changing and instead of Black males going to college, they were on the street corners selling dope. The pipeline to prison saga was in existence and becoming kind of normalcy in the urban community. The homicide rate doubled amongst Black males 14–17, while the homicide rate in general, remained steady amongst 25-year olds and older (Cooper & Smith, 2011).