Ricky Anderson can pinpoint the exact moment his life changed for good.
He was in second grade in Memphis. He was standing next to his sister, who spoke with a man at the front door of his family’s three-bedroom apartment in Cleaborn Homes, the public housing development where they lived with their two siblings and their mother, Janie. The stranger slipped the joint he was smoking to Anderson. His sister let it happen.
At that point, the borders of Anderson’s life didn’t extend far beyond Cleaborn. He went to school, got good grades and played outside with the other kids in the neighborhood; Janie worked hard and hammered home the importance of education. In Cleaborn, though, drugs felt as ordinary and unremarkable as any of those other things…