Camden, New Jersey, is quite possibly the most troubled and dangerous city in America. But a far different story lies beneath this cold surface. It is a story of hope, of voices struggling desperately against deaf ears. In the summer of 1999, a college student named Stuart Albright arrived in Camden full of youthful idealism and a naive sense of justice. Blessed Returns is the moving, deeply personal account of a young man's coming-of-age amidst a tumultuous and life-changing summer. Albright worked at a youth facility in the heart of Camden's blighted, industrial core, and he discovered a...

Sidelines is an insider's look at the fascinating world of high-school football, and, beyond that, it is also about the death and rebirth of the American community. Stuart Albright uses football to explore our nation's complicated history of race and public education and to explain why some communities continue to thrive while others are slowly dying away. Sidelines tells the story of nine very different communities across North Carolina, from deep in the Appalachian Mountains where a team of Cherokee Indians carry the hopes of an entire tribe on its shoulders, to military outposts where the...