Based on a heart-rending and much discussed series in the " Washington Post ," this is the story of one woman and her family living in the projects in Washington DC. A transcendent piece of writing, it won both the Pulitzer Price and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. The Kennedy prize board called it a "tour de force" that "sets the standard for reporting about poverty." For hours Leon Dash of the " Washington Post" followed the lives of Rosa Lee Cunningham, her children, and five of her grandchildren, in an effort to understand the persistence of poverty and pathology within America's black underclass. Rosa Lee's life story spans a half century of hardship in the slums and housing projects of Southeast Washington, a stone's throw from the marble halls and civic monuments of the world's most prosperous nation. Yet for all of America's efforts, Rosa Lee and millions like her remain trapped in a cycle of poverty characterized by illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, drugs, and violent crime. Dash brings us into her life and the lives of her family members offering a human drama that statistics can only refer to. He also shows how some people--including two of Rosa Lee's children--have made it out of the ghetto, braking the cycle to lead stable middle-class lives in the mainstream of American society. Rosa Lee's story is sometimes discomforting and distrubing, for she has made choices that were not always wise, and she has paid the price for her actions. Those who read this poignant and provocative portrait will see that Rosa Lee's voice is one that cannot be ignored, and through her experiences we see the magnitude of the problems facing urban America today."Soconvincing and so valuable is his intimacy with his subjects, an intimacy that very few writers about the underclass have ever achieved."--Nicholas Lemann, "New York Review of Books" "An extremely well-written and effective book that calls for thoughtful solutions to complex problems."--Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D., Harvard Medical School and Judge Baker Children's Center
- ISBN10 0452278961
- ISBN13 9780452278967
- Publish Date 1 September 1997
- Publish Status Temporarily Withdrawn
- Out of Print 18 October 2011
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
- Imprint New American Library
- Format Paperback
- Pages 288
- Language English