Williamsburg Regional Library

Money rock, a family's story of cocaine, race, and ambition in the new South, Pam Kelley

eng

Includes bibliographical references

individual biography

mapsillustrations

no index present

non fiction

Money rock

bibliography

1049577176

Pam Kelley

a family's story of cocaine, race, and ambition in the new South

Meet Money Rock. He's young. He's charismatic. He's generous, often to a fault. He's one of Charlotte's most successful cocaine dealers, and that's what first prompted veteran reporter Pam Kelley to craft this riveting social history--by turns action-packed, uplifting, and tragic--of a striving African American family, swept up and transformed by the 1980s cocaine epidemic. The saga begins in 1963 when a budding civil rights activist named Carrie gives birth to Belton Lamont Platt, eventually known as Money Rock, in a newly integrated North Carolina hospital. Pam Kelley takes readers through a shootout that shocks the city, a botched FBI sting, and a trial with a judge known as "Maximum Bob." When the story concludes more than a half century later, Belton has redeemed himself. But three of his sons have met violent deaths and his oldest, fresh from prison, struggles to make a new life in a world where the odds are stacked against him. This gripping tale, populated with characters both big-hearted and flawed, shows how social forces and public policies--racism, segregation, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration--help shape individual destinies. Money Rock is a deeply American story, one that will leave readers reflecting on the near impossibility of making lasting change, in our lives and as a society, until we reckon with the sins of our past

Money rock and big Lou -- Showdown at Piedmont courts -- Carrie Platt and the American dream -- Candy kingpin -- The dealer's mother -- What went wrong with Piedmont courts? -- State of North Carolina versus money rock -- Convictions -- Heavy in the weight -- Going down -- United States versus money rock -- Coming of age in a world-class city -- The Christian inmate -- Sentencing a generation -- Lost boys -- The love of his life -- Freedom -- Trying to make a change -- Susan and Mashandia -- Homecoming -- Life on the outside -- Uprising -- Southside homes -- Epilogue -- Where they are now -- Acknowledgments -- Notes

adult

Family's story of cocaine, race, and ambition in the new South