Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series

  The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice, and the American City by Nicholas Dawidoff                                                             The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued August 26 th . Sixteen of us met to discuss this disturbing non-fiction book. The Other Side of Prospect begins with the murder of Pete Fields, a senior citizen on a residential street in New Haven and an innocent teenager named Bobby being charged with the murder and serving nine years in prison.   The author describes the world of this neighborhood, called Newhallville, starting with the Black people who came to New Haven from South Carolina during the Great Migration, the good-paying jobs they were able to get at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, the properties they bought, and the community they...

The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued via Zoom during the COVID 19 shutdown! Eleven us met on a Zoom conference and I must say that it was a very beneficial meeting! The man at the center of the book, William "Juneboy" Outlaw III logged in and answered all of our questions while giving us background on his life that wasn't included in the book. Outlaw had been one of the biggest drug dealers and gang leader in New Haven and is now a community activist and motivational speaker. He works with the group: CT VIP (Connecticut Violence Intervention Program. The book is amazingly narrative, reading almost like a best-selling novel. Charles Barber of Wesleyan University is the author, but this is truly Juneboy's story. He said it took five years to write the book and the publishers edited out a great deal of material. There is talk of a movie project in the works! Outlaw expressed his disappointment with the publisher's decision to leave out ...