Ain't No Makin' It: Aspirations And Attainment In A Low-Income Neighborhood

The Story

This expanded edition of Jay MacLeod's landmark study adds three new chapters that follow the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers into adulthood. Eight years later the author returns to Clarendon Heights housing project to find the members of both gangs struggling in the labor market or on the streets. Caught in the web of urban industrial decline, the Hallway Hangers--undereducated, unemployed, or imprisoned--have turned to the underground economy. But 'cocaine capitalism' only fuels the desperation of the Hallway Hangers, who increasingly seek solace in sexism and racism. The ambitious Brothers have fared little better. Their teenage dreams in tatters, the Brothers demonstrate that racism takes its toll on optimistic aspirations. 'Ain't No Makin' It' is the impassioned inside story of how America looks from the bottom--of immobility rather than success.