< p >The Marshall Project is a nonprofit newsroom covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for our newsletters to receive all of our stories and analysis. One of the most confounding legacies of the crack epidemic is that everyone has heard of crack — we all think we know what we need to know — but few of us actually understand it. That’s not an accident, argues journalist Donovan X. Ramsey in his new book, “When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era.” Public information about crack was often more hyperbole than science, Ramsey writes, and those who used crack were portrayed as villains, to our detriment, as lawmakers and law enforcement tried to respond to the drug’s explosion in popularity. Over the course of five years, Ramsey, The Marshall Project’s former commentary editor, criss-crossed the country, interviewing hundreds of people whose lives were touched by crack. He spoke with dealers and users, their family members, politicians and community leaders, and researchers and scientists, and he has written a beautiful mosaic of a book through their eyes. “When Crack Was King” follows four people through the ravages of the crack epidemic and out the other side, and he intersperses their personal narratives with history and politics to put their experiences in context. Elgin Swift sold crack as a teenager on the streets of Yonkers, New York, after his father descended into addiction and left him to fend for himself. Lennie Woodley grew up amid trauma and abuse in Los Angeles and turned to sex work at an early age to support her addiction, after she discovered crack could make her pain go away. Kurt Schmoke was a three-term mayor of Baltimore who steered the city through the worst of the epidemic. And Shawn McCray came of age in the projects in Newark, New Jersey, with one foot in the streets and one in the world of prep school, college and basketball. The Marshall Project spoke with Ramsey about the book and the lessons he learned while writing it. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.< /p >
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