The Public Enemy 1988 song about crack use, “Night of the Living Baseheads,” was a red alert warning us about its dangers. However, while the group’s leader and co-founder Chuck D was preaching to the ...

“I’ve been all over the country and have interviewed hundreds of people whose lives were touched by crack, but never have I met a ‘crackhead,’” Donovan X. Ramsey writes toward the end of his first ...

When it came to smoking crack, Charlie Engle was the best. He was pretty good at drinking, too. It was only in his late twenties that he finally managed to quit and took up ultrarunning instead. Three ...

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks to author Donovan X. Ramsey about his new book, "When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era." It tells the story of the crack cocaine epidemic. One of ...