Gang Leader For A Day

As a recently transplanted farm girl from Wisconsin, I am still getting in sync with the particular cultures alive in Blue Island. One way to keep up with the community is to read the Forum, which I do, religiously. Another way to tune in is to notice which library books people are checking out, reading, re-reading and recommending to one another--- and then read those books, too. Examples of perennial Blue Island bestsellers are A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer or My Bloody Life by Reymundo Sanchez. I recently read My Bloody Life, a first person testimony of life in the Latin Kings gang in Chicago. While this book was moving and eye-opening, it was also quite graphic in its descriptions of sex and violence and definitely a “Do you know what your kids are reading?” book. On the other hand, the “bestseller” book I finished last night, Gang Leader For a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, is more suitable for any adult member of the family interested in the history of Chicago or the life of poor black people in the Robert Taylor projects on the South Side in the 1980s and 1990s.

Gang Leader For A Day is about a young, naïve graduate student who infiltrates a branch of the Black King gang in order to research their lives for his PhD program at the University of Chicago. He makes silly mistakes at first, like asking gang members “What does it feel like to be black and poor?” and expecting a polite answer. Over the course of the book, he grows close to the gang leader J.T., the powerful Robert Taylor tenant president Mrs. Bailey, and other assorted hustlers, crack addicts, and even the elite circle ruling the gang from the suburbs of Calumet City. The book is full of interesting details about life in the projects from the business of selling crack to the realities of carrying laundry down flights of urine-stained walls, stepping over squatters and prostitutes on the way to the washing machine, to problems of a career of fixing cars or selling stolen cigarettes in the underground economy in the neighborhood. Though Venkatesh continually probes the morality of the illegal activities he witnesses, he also comes to understand the circumstances well, and never fails to show his respect for the people caught up in this system of poverty. Most of all the book is about the unlikely friendship of two guys, the author and JT, spending time together as they each grow up into their chosen lives, one a professor, the other a thug.

Congressman Jesse L. Jackson says: “Whether you enjoy fiction, history, or biography you’ll be drawn to Venkatesh’s gripping retelling of his experiences in the Robert Taylor Homes. Gang Leader For A Day poignantly reminds us that there continue to be separate and unequal Americas that ultimately impact us all.”