This case study examines how low-income residents, community leaders, the Nation of Islam, and the police joined forces to close down an open air drug market. The research shows how a previously stable black community became severely destabilized and documents the efforts of community members to mobilize their neighbors around home ownership, tenant empowerment and jobs.

Adopting a holistic perspective, the author examines tensions between opportunities and constraints dictating the aspirations of individuals, the historical factors influencing the course of events in their community, and the agenda of various government and private agencies. This three-year ethnographic study observed the community's rejuvenation and the drastic reduction in drug-related crimes, antagonism between the police and the Nation of Islam, and the demise of the HUD funded tenants' home ownership initiative.

(Ph.D. dissertation, George Washington University, 1996; revised with new preface, introduction, bibliography, and index)