When Crack Was King with Donovan X. Ramsey

Four Degrees to the Streets

Donovan X. Ramsey, author of When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era joins the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast to explore the relationship between the crack era and urban planning.

The crack epidemic, more commonly known as the crack era, was the decade between 1985-1995 of high crack-cocaine use and distribution in U.S. cities and urban areas. The period birthed the “War on Drugs”, a series of laws that gave police permission to patrol and harass everyone in any neighborhood associated with the substance, created mandatory sentencing terms for drug-related offenses, punished users more severely than dealers, and did very little for substance abuse treatment for addicts. Popular media told the story of the crack epidemic through caricatures of “crackheads”, “crack babies”, and “super predators” to describe people, mostly Black people living in cities, impacted or associated with the substance.

The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast invited Donovan X. Ramsey to the show to discuss the complex relationships between the crack epidemic, the war on drugs, urban policy, and the Black lived experience. Together, Donovan and Jasmine, explore the synergy between the war on drugs and urban renewal, Hope IV, the Federal Highway Act, and other urban planning policies. Ramsey shares his thoughts on how America heals from the crack epidemic. The conversation pulls back the curtain on the lies, stereotypes, and misunderstandings about the crack epidemic to enlighten listeners and champion the voices of those forgotten due to their association with the substance: crack-cocaine.

When Crack Was King: A People’s History Of A Misunderstood Era is dedicated to “the misunderstood, the marginalized, and the maligned”. The goal of the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast is “to empower and provide tools to overcome structural and institutional barriers”. Download the episode to hear how these two missions collide.

And listen till the end for an exclusive on Ramsey’s next project.

The special guest for this episode is Donovan X. Ramsey, his full bio is written below:

Donovan X. Ramsey is an indispensable voice on issues of identity, culture, and patterns of power in America. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, WSJ Magazine, Ebony, and Essence, among other outlets. He has been a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, NewsOne, and theGrio. He has served as an editor at The Marshall Project and Complex. Ramsey is the author of 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. He holds degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Morehouse College.