47th Street Black

"In the early 1960s, 47th Street is the heart of black Chicago, where recent migrants with the South still in their voices come to move up in the world. When best friends J. C. and Mookie discover the dead body of the area's black liaison to the Mafia, Mookie sees opportunity, and in no time the two are working for Salvie, the local mob boss. Within a year, they are the most feared figures on 47th Street.". "Smooth, charismatic Mookie becomes the de facto leader and small, violent J. C. the enforcer - roles that send J. C. to jail for a murder they committed together. In the fifteen years he's away, J. C. gains a prison education and a resentment he can't control, while Mookie gains power over Chicago's entire South Side. By the time J. C. is paroled, both the neighborhood and the two men's lives are on an inexorable path toward an explosive confrontation."--BOOK JACKET.