Ghetto Life 101 (excerpt)
Recorded in Chicago, Illinois. Premiered May 18, 1993, on WBEZ Chicago.
In March, 1993, LeAlan Jones, 13, and Lloyd Newman, 14, collaborated with public radio producer David Isay to create the radio documentary Ghetto Life 101, their audio diaries of life on Chicago’s South Side. The boys taped for 10 days, walking listeners through their daily lives: to school, to an overpass to throw rocks at cars, to a bus ride that takes them out of the ghetto, and to friends and family members in the community.
Ghetto Life 101 became one of the most acclaimed programs in public radio history, winning almost all of the major awards in American broadcasting, including: the Sigma Delta Chi Award, the Ohio State Award, the Livingston Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards for Excellence in Documentary Radio and Special Achievement in Radio Programming, and others. Ghetto Life 101 was also awarded the Prix Italia, Europe’s oldest and most prestigious broadcasting award. It has been translated into a dozen languages and has been broadcast worldwide.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Dave Isay is the founder of Sound Portraits Productions. Over the past thirteen years his radio documentary and feature work has won almost every award in broadcasting including four Peabody Awards, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, and two Livingston Awards for young journalists. David has also received the Prix Italia (Europe's oldest and most distinguished broadcasting honor), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994) and most recently a MacArthur Fellowship (2000). He is the author (or co-author) of three books based on Sound Portraits radio stories: Holding On (W.W. Norton & Co., 1995); Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago (Scribner, 1997); and Flophouse (Random House, 2000).
Lloyd Newman writes:
I know a lot of people have been wondering what's been going on with me over the past few years. Is he living up to his words or is he still living that Ghetto Life? Well, I'd have to say both. Since the documentaries and the book came out, I have attended three different colleges, searching for the one that fits me best. I'm not living a Ghetto Life but I'm still living in the ghetto (when I'm not at school), which doesn't bother me at all, even though there are rats and roaches still crawl the wall. My father has been doing the same. Some people might think, "Oh he's a terrible father," but a father who loves his kids as much as mine does is the best father you can have. My sisters are still doing great, raising great kids, even thought they still don't have jobs. Lately I've been thinking of a million things that I want to do, but I've had a hard time putting it all together. Yes, I have been blessed with success in journalism, but I was a kid then and had a lot of help. Now that I'm in college, I see you have to work hard to get to where you want to be. All I can say is: I got ideas. Don't think that this will be the last time you will hear from me because I will put those ideas to work.
LeAlan Jones writes:
I am now a junior at Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois, were I am taking up Interdisciplinary Studies with a minor in Poli-Sci. I will be graduating from Barat in the spring of 2002 with a Bachelors Degree in the above fields. I have been continuing to speak at all levels of academia, from grade schools to graduate and law schools around the United States. I firmly committed to changing the intolerable conditions of urban America. I still live in the same community and have immersed myself in attempts to affect the social climate of poverty. A change will come when we as a people embrace difference and respect all capacities of life. Whether it be a ghetto or an isolated rural community, we have to begin working towards One America. This is my goal, my life, and my mission.
