Eugene Richards: Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue

by Eugene Richards (Photographer)

This is a compelling portrait of three communities blighted by drugs and East New York, North Philadelphia, and the Red Hook housing projects in Brooklyn, New York. With a chilling and informative afterword by Dr. Stephen W. Nicholas, a pediatric AIDS physician in Harlem, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue reveals how first steps toward solutions to overcome the drug trade have actually contributed to public denial and further isolation of the trapped communities. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue is a history of our times, a terrifying document that will educate us and promote dialogue.

"Eugene Richards's wrenching photographic study of the culture of cocaine in three inner-city neighborhoods gives faces to some of the victims of addiction. It provides a shocking and heartrending picture of the damage inflicted by the drug."

--Charles Hagen, The New York Times

"Eugene Richards's seventh book, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue , reaffirms his position as the premier chronicler of the dark side of American life ˜ he is the true heir to the mantle of the legendary W. Eugene Smith."

-- American Photo

Genres: Photography, Art, Drugs, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 1994

Reviews

[Julie Grace Immink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earth's inner layer

[Erin Cataldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down the most compelling and chilling photo documentary I've ever encountered. This images will haunt you. Eugene Richards captures the crack epidemic in three impoverished neighborhoods; Red Hook Housing Project, East New York, and North Philadelphia. The haunting photos of people shooting up, running from cops, sleeping in shacks, working the street, etc. are accompanied by dialogue from addicts, and people living in the neighborhoods. It's profoundly sad, many recount what bright futures they had, friends who were murdered, babies who were lost. It gets you right in the gut. This book forces you to pay attention to this horrific problem that plagues our country and cities.

If the pictures don't capture your attention, the statistics will.

"There were 107 murders, 145 rapes, 3,285 robberies, and 567 felonious assaults in East New York in one year, a population of 160,000."

"The United States accounts for 5% of the world's populations and consumes 50% of the world's cocaine."

"By 1990 in New York City... over 40,000 children were in foster care, approximately 90% of them born to drug using mother."

This book makes you open your eyes to the issue, and after viewing the images, you'll never be able to close them again.

[Aaron the Pink Donut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richards take you to the abyss with this one.

[Andel Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cocaine is a hell of a drug! I think abusing it in such ways, as some do, rapes it's true meaning. Personally I love it...?!,!:)/&. Hmmmmm

[Crista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary, unflinching and necessary look at the height of the crack epidemic. This is the book that brought me to photojournalism.