Gang Leader for a Day : A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

by Venkatesh, Sudhir

• ISBN13: 9781594201509
• ISBN10: 1594201501
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-10
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The

Summary

First introduced in Freakonomics, here is the full story of Sudhir Venkatesh, the sociology grad student who infiltrated one of Chicago's most notorious gangs The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Dayis the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrŽe into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student hoping to impress his professors with his boldness, he never imagined that as a result of the assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there. Over the next seven years, Venkatesh got to know the neighborhood dealers, crackheads, squatters, prostitutes, pimps, activists, cops, organizers, and officials. From his privileged position of unprecedented access, he observed JT and the rest of the gang as they operated their crack-selling business, conducted PR within their community, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure. In Hollywood-speak, Gang Leader for a Dayis The Wiremeets Harvard University. It's a brazen, page turning, and fundamentally honest view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt struggle to survive in what is tantamount to an urban war zone. It is also the story of a complicated friendship between Sudhir and JT-two young and ambitious men a universe apart.

Author Biography

Sudhir Venkatesh is professor of sociology and African American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He has written extensively about American poverty. He is currently working on a project comparing the urban poor in France and the United States. His writings, stories, and documentaries have appeared in The American Prospect, This American Life, the Source, and on PBS and National Public Radio.

Table of Contents

Foreword
How Does It Feel to Be Black and Poor?	p. 1
First Days on Federal Street	p. 27
Someone to Watch Over Me	p. 67
Gang Leader for a Day	p. 113
Ms. Bailey's Neighborhood	p. 145
The Hustler and the Hustled	p. 185
Black and Blue	p. 219
The Stay-Together Gang	p. 247
Authors Note	p. 285
Acknowledgments	p. 287
Index	p. 291
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