Sharing deeply personal experiences, we explore the continuous ripple effects of the crack era, the failure of the criminal justice system, and the intersections between historical events like the Great Migration and the onset of the crack crisis. This episode confronts the disparities, the stigma, and the systemic negligence that fueled the crack epidemic. Join us on a journey of understanding and compassion of a misunderstood and misrepresented epidemic.
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Chapters
00:00 Queue Points Support Video
00:50 Intro Theme
01:21 Welcome to Queue Points
02:41 Donovan X. Ramsey Bio
04:16 Welcome Donovan X. Ramsey to Queue Points
06:53 Donovan remembers his neighbor Michelle
07:14 Michelle would play Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew" on repeat (DONOVAN SOLO)
08:32 What was the most challenging thing for Donovan writing this book?
11:03 How did crack use begin in the Black community?
17:59 The rise of crack was precipitated and aided by Black despair
21:03 Transition
21:09 Our childhoods and neighborhoods changed all around us.
22:14 The crack epidemic affected Black women in so many difficult ways
24:58 Lennie, one of the characters in the book, experienced a lot of abuse as a child
26:29 "Many of us grew up in these neighborhoods that were like steel towns where nobody talked about steel." - Donovan X. Ramsey
28:37 Transition
28:42 "What Chester Makes, Makes Chester" is dismantled and Jay Ray's hometown descends into chaos
30:03 Many cities are still dealing with crack's residue
31:54 Black folks left the south for better opportunities to places that weren't prepared for and didn't want us there.
33:14 Black folks were committed holding communities together against big odds.
38:51 There was a tenion between what was said about the crack epidemic and those who lived through it.
39:54 The "gentleman dealer" gets locked up, and the streets are destabilized
41:12 Transition
41:18 Donovan X. Ramsey on "When Crack Was King" as a testament to Black resilience
44:02 Black people do community better than anybody.
46:20 We didn't do right by Whitney Houston at a time when she really need us.
51:09 Who would Donovan like to narrate "When Crack Was King" in his wildest dreams?
53:50 Closing
56:02 Outro Theme
Donovan X. Ramsey Bio
Donovan X. Ramsey is a journalist, author, and an indispensable voice on issues of identity, justice, and patterns of power in America. Ramsey has covered Black American life as a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, NewsOne, and theGrio. He served as an editor at both The Marshall Project and Complex. His freelance reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, WSJ Magazine, Ebony, and Essence. In 2023, he published When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era, a work of narrative nonfiction exploring how Black America survived the crack epidemic for One World, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House, the world's largest trade book publisher. Ramsey holds degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Morehouse College. He lives in Los Angeles.
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