Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

In October 1982, Ronald Reagan began the War on Drugs, which Forman writes would ironically worsen the drug problem in America. Reagan said, “We’re making no excuses for drugs—hard, soft, or otherwise. Drugs are bad and we’re going after them” (351). Instead, the War on Drugs led to “ruined lives, hollowed-out communities, and mass incarceration” (351). Experts agreed that a focus on treatment would have been better. Resources for treatment were underfunded, as Reagan supported extra money for law enforcement instead.

Supporters of the War on Drugs framed addiction as a choice, casting addicts as weak. Extreme prison sentences appeared, and the numbers were often racially skewed: “Black people were seven times as likely to go to federal prison for crack offenses” (353). The increasing number of prisoners required the construction of new prisons. Instead, the nation should have been asking, “What kind of people are we that we build prisons while closing treatment centers?” (354).

Kitwana voted for the first time in 1988. The evolution of “Conscious hip hop” (356), combined with Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential run, got him invested in politics even though he had previously “had no stake in U.S. presidential politics” (355).

Landmark albums from the artists Public Enemy, DJ Kool Herc, and KRS-One integrated socially conscious messages and calls to action for young Black Americans into their lyrics.