ABSTRACTTHE CHARISMA OF CRACK COCAINE: THE IMPACT OF CRACK ON BLACK AMERICA, 1984-2010BYDANIEL RYAN DAVIS Crack cocaine has negatively impacted the African American community in a multitude of ways. African Americans, particularly in the inner cities of the United States, have experienced alarmingly high rates of imprisonment, violence, child neglect, and HIV/AIDS transmission due to their involvement with crack cocaine. Scholars have scarcely isolated individual issues related to African Americans and crack for analysis, and these minimal examinations have not captured the full scope of this problem. Due to the interconnectedness of many factors regarding this epidemic, an all-encompassing multifaceted examination is required to properly identify the severity of African American's involvement with crack cocaine. This dissertation serves as the first scholarly endeavor to synthesize a wide range of issues regarding this matter, while contextualizing this reality within the scope of African Americans over century long relationship with cocaine. The utilization of this approach effectively places the crack epidemic within the contexts of history and larger society. This method allows a focused examination of the crack epidemic within the scope of interconnected variables including: family, foreign relations, the global economy, deindustrialization, poverty, racism, law, unemployment, politics, film, psychology, music and hip hop culture. This dissertation highlights the long ignored intersections of these variables which combined to create the devastating crack epidemic within inner city Black America. As a result of this broad discussion, scholars and activists are equipped with the information necessary to take educated, efficient, and solution based action.
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