Gang leader for a day : a rogue sociologist takes to the streets / Sudhir Venkatesh.

Includes index.

"How does it feel to be black and poor?" -- First days on Federal Street -- Someone to watch over me -- Gang leader for a day -- Ms. Bailey's neighborhood -- The hustler and the hustled -- Black and blue -- The stay-together gang.

The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics. This is the full story of how Venkatesh managed to gain entrée into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When first-year grad student Venkatesh walked into one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a survey on urban poverty. He never imagined that he would befriend a gang leader and spend the better part of a decade inside the projects under his protection. He got to know the neighborhood dealers, crackheads, squatters, prostitutes, pimps, activists, cops, organizers, and officials. From his position of unprecedented access, he observed the gang as they operated their crack-selling business and rose or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure.--From publisher description.
Recounts the story of a young sociologist whose infiltration of a Chicago drug gang was originally introduced in the work "Freakonomics," describing the author's idealism, his friendship with gang leader JT, and his witness to the organization's crack-selling trade.