Rosa Lee

by Leon Dash

For four years, reporter Leon Dash followed the lives of Rosa Lee Cunningham, her eight children, and five of her grandchildren, in an effort to capture the stark reality of life in the growing black underclass. As a black journalist troubled by the crisis in urban America, he wanted readers to share his discomfort and alarm. Dash's reports in the Washington Post touched a powerful nerve - 4,600 readers called the paper in response - and received critical acclaim as well, winning both the Pulitzer Prize and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. (The Kennedy prize board called his series a "tour de force" that "sets the standard for reporting about poverty.") Dash continued reporting even after his articles were published, and in this book he provides the complete, unvarnished family portrait. . But Leon Dash does more than simply report facts; he becomes an integral part of Rosa Lee's daily life, driving her to the methadone clinic, helping her read her mail, visiting her in the hosp