One man's story of growing up in the South Bronx during an era of upheaval-and overcoming addiction to find success.
Allen Jones grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx at a time-the 1950s-when that neighborhood was a place of optimism and hope for upwardly mobile Black and Latino families. Brought up in a two-parent household, with many neighborhood mentors, Jones led an almost charmed life as a budding basketball star-until his teen years, when his once peaceful neighborhood was torn by job losses, white flight, and a crippling drug epidemic. Drawn into the heroin trade, first as a user, then as a dealer, Jones spent four months on Rikers Island, where he experienced a crisis of conscience and a determination to turn his life around.
Sent to a New England prep school upon his release, Jones used his skills and street smarts to forge a life outside the Bronx, first as a college athlete in the South, then as a professional basketball player, radio personality, and banker in Europe. In this memoir, he brings Bronx streets and housing projects to life as places of possibility as well as tragedy-where racism and economic hardship never completely suppressed the resilient spirit of the residents.
