When white people predominantly lived there, the projects were just an arm of the community. But across cities in America, as the Blacks moved in, everyone else cleared out. And when the color of the projects changed, so did the association. The people were no different—still just working folks trying to get by—but “projects” would come to mean separate, problematic. Other. The projects were limbs chopped off by mainstream society. So we’d end up having to create our own.
Coming from the projects I cannot agree more. This is a least spoken abt reality regarding the pjs. So happy to see this highlighted in the book.
