TheKongoEmpire
The First Men
43-Minute Listen
Why the crack cocaine epidemic hit Black communities 'first and worst'
July 13, 202 311:49 AM ETHeard on Fresh Air


Tonya Mosley

President George H. W. Bush holds a bag of crack cocaine as he poses for photographers in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 5, 1989.
Dennis Cook/AP
On Sept. 5, 1989, President George H.W. Bush appeared on live television to discuss what he called the nation's "gravest domestic threat." Sitting at his desk in the oval office, Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine that had been seized in a park across from the White House, saying: "It's as innocent looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones."
Looking back now, author and journalist Donovan X. Ramsey describes Bush's press conference as a form of propaganda designed to create a panic about the crack epidemic and to "demonize drug dealers and also addicts."