The child of a heroin-addicted mother growing up amidst poverty, violence, and drugs in the ghetto of West Dallas, Jerrold Ladd was determined to lead a better life. Fiercely independent, he took responsibility for his future, and, with the love of his family, became the first person in his family to attend college and later a national spokesperson on inner city problems.

The classic story of life in Apartheid South Africa.

Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.

This extraordinary memoir of life...