Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
TV Hub
  • today
A look at a Washington, DC woman and the unending loop of crime, prostitution, and addiction surrounding her and her family, and how her Washington Post profile by Leon Dash influenced policymakers and community leaders.

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00The story of Rosalie Cunningham just won a Pulitzer Prize.
00:13It's an odyssey through illiteracy, welfare, addiction, and crime.
00:21In a jail cell, I called him. I said, God, please help me.
00:26Tonight, why is Washington talking about the confessions of Rosalie?
00:35Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
00:40and by annual financial support from viewers like you.
00:48This is Frontline.
00:56The House today is expected to approve a GOP plan that would dismantle dozens of welfare programs built up since the Great Depression.
01:10The country has spent $5 trillion fighting a war on poverty.
01:15But the problems of the poorest have grown more intractable than ever.
01:18In Washington, D.C., poverty wears a blackface.
01:26Poverty stretches the limits of charity
01:28and pushes young men onto street corners.
01:36Sociologists call those worst off the underclass.
01:40They're the ones God-fearing poor folk look down on.
01:42The ones middle-class folk call the undeserving poor.
01:49Their numbers crowd the jails of the country.
01:55People who go to jail have children, you know,
01:57and those children are left out when the parents go in.
02:02When I decided that criminal lifestyle and criminal recidivism
02:06was an essential part of underclass life...
02:08Leon Dash is a reporter for the Washington Post.
02:11And I ended up interviewing 40 heads of families of criminal recidivists in the jail.
02:1620 men, 20 women.
02:18One of the 20 women was Rosalie.
02:20Rosalie Cunningham was in jail for selling heroin,
02:23her 12th criminal conviction in 14 years.
02:27You remember when you first met him in D.C. jail?
02:29That ugly man?
02:30Yeah.
02:31Oh, me, Mr. Dac?
02:31This one here.
02:32Oh, yes.
02:32This nosy man that's been...
02:34This man.
02:34...that has invaded your life.
02:35Yes.
02:37No.
02:38I explained that to her, too.
02:39Do you know?
02:39When I first met her, I said, I'm going to hound you.
02:43And he is.
02:44And I said, to the point that you will cuss me out.
02:47She said, well, you look like you can handle it.
02:50Did he hound you to the point where you cussed him out?
02:53Yeah.
02:54Mrs. Cunningham thought others could learn a lesson from her life,
02:58so she gave Dash complete access to her family for four years.
03:02His series, Rosalie's Story, ran in the Post every day for a week last fall.
03:07It laid out the details of her life, how she'd begun stealing as a child, and how she'd turned
03:14to shoplifting and prostitution to supplement welfare and raise her eight children, how six
03:20of those children spent their lives as their mother had, in and out of prison, and how she'd
03:25become a drug dealer and, in the end, a heroin junkie herself.
03:29When we met, you also had gone through one of the worst withdrawals from heroin that
03:35you had ever experienced.
03:37Right.
03:38And you really thought you were going to die.
03:40I sure did.
03:40Do you remember how much you were using at that point?
03:43Oh, my God.
03:43I was using two billies a day.
03:46What's a billy?
03:47A billy is a $40 bag of dope.
03:51Faced with a cold turkey withdrawal in D.C. jail, she hit bottom.
03:57This room, I started urinating on myself.
04:01I couldn't make it to the toilet.
04:05I couldn't hold.
04:07I couldn't hold my vows.
04:09I couldn't hold nothing.
04:11I started spitting up.
04:13I couldn't hold nothing.
04:15And that's when I started crying.
04:17And I started crying.
04:18I told a girl in the room with me.
04:21She said, Rosalie, you need help.
04:23I said, don't you think I know it?
04:25And I kept right on crying.
04:27And I kept on spitting up and everything else.
04:31And I said, God, please.
04:41I said, God, please help me.
04:45Help me.
04:47To me.
04:50We don't mind this.
04:51But to me.
04:57It's just like God answered my prayers.
05:01And he sent me somebody I could talk to.
05:05And who would listen to me.
05:07And wouldn't make fun of me.
05:09And wouldn't doubt me.
05:11And tell me, when you get back out, you know you're going to get back on drugs.
05:15He didn't say anything.
05:17He listened to me.
05:18And he heard me.
05:20And she would always tell me, I don't have anyone to listen to me and hear me.
05:25And I would tell her, well, you must realize, Rose, that I'm also working.
05:29That our conversations are something that I eventually will write about.
05:33And I would say that over and over again.
05:35And she said, it doesn't matter.
05:37Rosalie's story played like an urban novel in the pages of the Washington Post.
05:43It became the talk of the cocktail circuit.
05:46The story and its pictures were particularly controversial among Washington's African-American middle class.
05:52If anything's going to reinforce a stereotype, it's the story of Rosalie and her family.
05:58And many Americans, white and black, believe we've had enough of stereotypes.
06:03And here come along a stereotype writ large, bigger than life, as a way to educate people about disadvantage.
06:11And they correctly see that it will educate some into deeper and deeper stereotypes.
06:19There are no stereotypes you're dealing with here.
06:2257% of the urban underclass is made up of black people.
06:2620% is made up of white.
06:2820% is made up of Hispanics.
06:30And 3% is made up of Asians and Native Americans.
06:33They are not stereotypical.
06:36All of that behavior crosses all of those ethnic lines.
06:41You can't avoid it because you're afraid of being accused of perpetuating stereotypes.
06:46When the reality is that this behavior is something that goes on in underclass life.
06:53They are at the bottom rung of society.
06:56They're not even counted as unemployed.
07:00During the four years they worked on the story,
07:03Dash and Rosalie took a journey back through her life.
07:07He discovered a family of North Carolina sharecroppers
07:11who'd escaped the cotton fields during the Depression.
07:16It was 1935.
07:19Franklin Roosevelt had just signed the Social Security Act.
07:22Her family settled within sight of the Capitol, but a world away.
07:26My grandmother got what they used to call day's work.
07:34You know, working around somebody's house, cleaning it up, stuff like that.
07:38My grandfather did construction work.
07:40My mother, she kept a job or two at the time.
07:47She worked in laundries all over the city.
07:52She was a church-going lady.
07:54Rosalie's mother gave birth to 22 children.
08:00Only 11 survived.
08:02Miss Rosalie, as we used to call Rosalie's mother, was a domestic, and she was in and out.
08:10Sometimes she would sell dinners in the house for the neighbors.
08:17Most of the families were large there.
08:20They were, all of the families, my family included, were poor.
08:26Girls back in those days trained to be domestics.
08:30A life Rosalie, born in 1936, rebelled against.
08:33I was the only girl at the time.
08:36And she taught me how to clean up, make beds, wash, scrub floors.
08:41And I was a young child.
08:43I could look out the window and see other girls of their plan or stand around talking.
08:50And, what?
08:53You know, I was just standing there wondering, you know, why do I have to do all this?
08:56She was only eight when she began stealing from houses in the neighborhood.
09:04Most people, they need their pocketbook or they need their wallet on their table.
09:08Right.
09:08And I would go in there.
09:12And most of the time, I didn't take the whole pocketbook.
09:14I would take the money out of the wallet or out of the pocketbook.
09:19And I'd ease back out.
09:21I'd ease my butt up that street.
09:23Uh-huh.
09:23And, you know, anyway, I would get away with it.
09:27I understand.
09:28I was a very naughty girl.
09:29She used the money to take her friends to the movies or the candy store.
09:34I wanted some friends, Miss June.
09:37I didn't have any.
09:39Were you trying to buy friendships?
09:40I wasn't trying.
09:41I was buying them.
09:43I knew I was.
09:44But it was all right.
09:46They were my friends.
09:48Rosalie is very smart, very manipulative, very skillful in her own way.
09:53But her skin color, I believe, led, her skin color and her poverty led to her being put
10:02in a slow learning track in the D.C. school system, when that school system was rigidly
10:06segregated, ironically.
10:08Well, usually it's the opposite.
10:09See, I went to a public school that was segregated.
10:11Okay.
10:11I had black teachers that did the opposite.
10:14I mean, they took more time with it.
10:15Well.
10:16In a black school system, why would a kid like Rosalie be singled out because she was poor?
10:22All black people were poor in those days.
10:23Yeah, but all black people were not the same shade.
10:26And those who were darker were discriminated against by those who were lighter skinned.
10:31And those who were darker skinned were shunned.
10:35I think we had a whole lot of children who were dark, who were from large families, who got
10:45as much attention as anybody else.
10:47But then there may have been something in her manner that would turn the teacher off.
10:57Like what?
10:59Maybe she sassed.
11:01Or maybe she wouldn't stay in her seat.
11:04Maybe she was running out of the room.
11:05Maybe you couldn't find her.
11:08I don't know this, but I'm saying there were things that would get the teachers a little upset.
11:14And they may give up on you.
11:17Rosalie didn't like Miss Jeter's slow class.
11:21One day, she followed a little boy up to the regular fourth grade classroom and got a
11:25totally different experience at school.
11:27And she'll call them up to the board and tell them to write this.
11:31If you don't know how to do it, ask me.
11:33I'll explain it to you.
11:35I say, well, I've been done.
11:38Miss Jeter never done say that.
11:41And I really, it took my mind off the little boy.
11:44And I started looking.
11:45For a whole week, I came upstairs to Miss Whitehead's class.
11:49And I wanted to take her to my paperwork so bad.
11:53But I know I'm not in her class.
11:55So when she asked a question, my hand went just like that.
12:00And she said, and she said, you know, she said, who are you?
12:06You know, I stood up.
12:07And she said, well, I say, well, five times five is 25.
12:12And then I went on down the line, you know.
12:14She said, all of it is right.
12:16But first tell me, who are you?
12:18I said, oh, God.
12:19I said, my name is Rosalie Wright.
12:23She said, oh, Rosalie Wright, I don't have you.
12:31Then my hand went to my face.
12:33And she said, when the class dismissed, she said, Miss Wright, come here.
12:38Like this.
12:39And she said, who are you?
12:42I said, Rosalie Wright.
12:44And I felt so stupid because I knew I weren't supposed to be there.
12:48But I told her I like the way she teach people.
12:53And I wish I could be up in her class because I did not know how to read.
12:59Rosalie went on to junior high school without learning how to read and write.
13:04And that same year, her father died from alcoholism.
13:07When I look at it, that's when Rosalie really broke out in terms of,
13:14it may be just a coincidence of reaching puberty,
13:17but she really began going out outside the house looking for love, from my perspective.
13:24And for her, looking for love or looking for attention from other people,
13:29both from her girlfriends and from boys.
13:32And that search for love was interpreted by Rosalie as being sexually available.
13:43And that indeed ended up with her being pregnant at age 13 with her first son.
13:51Rosalie's only memento of her childhood is this worn-out picture of her mother.
13:55They were sometimes pregnant at the same time.
13:59And Rosalie describes their relationship as filled with conflict.
14:02What was her attitude towards you when you got pregnant for the first time at 13?
14:07She got mad with me because she told me I didn't know what I was doing.
14:15I didn't know what I was doing, she said.
14:17I didn't know what I was doing.
14:20All I know is that I saw other girls with little boyfriends,
14:24and they seemed to be happy.
14:27I wanted a boyfriend.
14:28After the first baby was born, and she was living in, her and her family were living in a building,
14:36and on the first floor, the ground floor of that building,
14:39was living an elderly man who approached her for sex.
14:43And she was, she wouldn't have been, she would have been 14 years old.
14:49And they had sexual relations, and he would pay her $5.
14:53And she thought that that was a fabulous amount of money.
14:57And so that would be the first experience with prostitution.
15:02It was 1952 before Rosalie's mother moved into a house with electricity and an indoor toilet.
15:08Rosalie already had two sons, and when she got pregnant again,
15:12her mother forced Albert Cunningham to marry her in the family church.
15:16When I got married and went home, about a week later,
15:22my mother made me take Ronnie and Barbie.
15:26And my husband liked to walk me to death.
15:29Because you say, I lied to him.
15:32Miss June, I didn't know where to take my children.
15:36They were mine.
15:37And my mother told me I had to take them.
15:40But my husband said, I lied to him.
15:43He liked to beat me to death.
15:44So I came back home to my mother.
15:47And I knew then it was time for me to try to get out of there.
15:54At 20, she moved to this northeast Washington neighborhood.
15:57She had six kids by then.
15:59Welfare was paying her about $27 a month for each child.
16:03And Rosalie says she could never figure out how to make ends meet.
16:06What do you remember as the best times of your childhood?
16:08What do you remember as the best times of your childhood?
16:14Oh, boy.
16:23I, um...
16:25It depends on how old I was at the time.
16:32It depends.
16:35When I was younger, I don't remember too many good things.
16:39The drive-in.
16:40My father used to take us to drive-in every weekend.
16:47I don't have too many very good memories when I was younger.
16:56My mother was a struggling woman.
16:58Like I said, she had eight kids.
17:00The time she was 21, she had eight kids.
17:02And that's a lot of kids from a young woman.
17:06You know?
17:06And she couldn't...
17:07And she tried her best to do for us all.
17:10You know, there was times that she couldn't.
17:13Times we were feeling right through the shoes.
17:15And clothes and knees and hoes in the pants, in the knees.
17:18And my pants.
17:20My mother had to do whatever was necessary.
17:22All I think was, they're my children.
17:27And I'm going to take care of them.
17:28And I just kept right on having them.
17:30I didn't know how important it was going to be sooner or later.
17:35Because, I mean...
17:37The way...
17:40Raising the coffin.
17:42The way I brought my children up.
17:45The way I brought my children up.
17:47I don't want nobody to bring theirs up.
17:52Look at his eyes.
18:00Rosalie supplemented her welfare income illegally.
18:04With jobs that paid cash under the table.
18:08She worked as a shake dancer at the A21 Club.
18:11And as a waitress at the Coco Club.
18:14And she said, when men would ask her,
18:19What are you doing when you get off from work?
18:21She would be very explicit and said,
18:23I have eight children at home.
18:26So anything we're going to engage in is going to require you to give me some money.
18:32Yes, you can take me home.
18:34But keep in mind, I have eight children at home.
18:36And she said...
18:37The way she put it, she said, I come right out with it.
18:39I've known her to go out and steal and bring the merchandise back and sell it.
18:50You know.
18:51And she got good money.
18:53Because, well, I understand she was one of the best in the city.
18:58From hearing other people talking about it.
19:00And she made good money at shoplifting.
19:03Because she had nerve.
19:05Didn't you at one time close all your brothers and sisters?
19:07I sure did.
19:08I even took clothes over to my mother.
19:11And my mother thought I was going to charge her for her.
19:13I said, no, Mom, I couldn't sell it here.
19:15You can have...
19:16And I don't mean cheap clothes, either.
19:18I mean, you'd find a skirt called $29.
19:20Back in them days, that's a good skirt.
19:22And a jacket, sweater, jewelry, pocketbooks.
19:27Anything that I could bring out of the store.
19:30Until she was 29, she got away with it.
19:32Then in 1965, Rosalie served her first real jail time.
19:36Eight months for trying to steal a fur coat.
19:38The welfare was going to take her children, but they were going to separate them.
19:45My mother said no.
19:46My mother took all eight of her grandchildren into her home and raised them while my sister was incarcerated.
19:56If that's not love, what is?
19:57I think at that time, there was about 16 or 17 in one household.
20:04I remember Bobby writing me, Mom, I'd be so glad when you come home.
20:08I remember that.
20:10Okay.
20:11But I don't remember my mother writing me a letter.
20:13And then it didn't bother me.
20:16Because I didn't write her.
20:18But she came to see you often, right?
20:20She...
20:20Oh.
20:21Adjustment.
20:22Didn't she bring the checks out there once a month for you to sign?
20:25And at one point, she brought some paperwork out there for you to sign...
20:29To sign the children.
20:30...the guardianship over...
20:31Over to her.
20:31...to her.
20:32Yes.
20:33And you refused to sign the papers.
20:34Yes.
20:35Why?
20:36I didn't want my mother to have my children.
20:38She left prison determined never to depend on her mother again.
20:43For the next two years, she and her eight children lived in a series of one-bedroom apartments.
20:50We were living rough.
20:53We were living rough.
20:54My mother still was on our public assistant.
20:56And then she still was boosting.
20:59For the people that don't know what boosting means, it's shoplifting.
21:02And...
21:04My grandma didn't spend a lot of time going to see my mother.
21:11Yeah.
21:12She didn't.
21:14My mother was trying to survive what she had.
21:18But I think if my father would have married her, she would have been okay.
21:21I think back in them days, two people working together meant a lot.
21:28Dave wanted to marry me.
21:33But I was still married.
21:36And...
21:36The welfare wasn't going to help me if I got married to Dave Wright.
21:40And what was he going to do?
21:42Walk out and leave me one day with all eight of them?
21:45No.
21:47Uh-uh.
21:47With welfare, I knew I'd stand a chance of keeping my children.
21:52I don't have to put up with a man to drink more than water.
21:56And I just didn't worry about it.
21:58Because I knew welfare would help me with my children.
22:02He was gone a lot.
22:03Bobby, the oldest son, was put in charge of the children,
22:07all the children that followed him, as early as age eight.
22:12So he was...
22:13This is an eight-year-old boy raising his younger brothers and sisters.
22:17And all of the younger brothers and sisters talk about Ronnie...
22:21I mean, Bobby, I'm sorry, as their father figure.
22:25He was forced to, you know, to give up his youth,
22:29you know, to take care of us while my mother was away.
22:33So his childhood was torn apart.
22:37You know, what I mean by torn apart,
22:40he would have to prepare the meals, help organize us,
22:46keep the house clean, give us chores to do.
22:50And in turn, my mother would, like, she would go out and work
22:53and come back and things had to be done.
22:57Do you remember anything about school?
22:59Going to school?
23:01Not much.
23:03Because, um...
23:04I never really went.
23:07I played hooky.
23:09I played hooky.
23:09I went to stores.
23:10I was stealing, like my mother.
23:12I was doing everything my mother was doing.
23:14Ms. Cunningham wasn't really pushing them to go to school.
23:19She'd say, you know, things like,
23:21I told that boy to get up and go to school,
23:23and she'd give me permission to go in and get them up to go to school.
23:27She did fuss with Patty about going to school,
23:31but if she didn't want to go, she, you know,
23:33she didn't really push her to go.
23:35As a child, Rosalie had felt left out and picked on in school.
23:39Twenty years later, so did her son Eric.
23:42You were getting kicked out of school for getting in fights and stuff
23:44when you were a kid, right?
23:47Something like that.
23:48What were you getting in fights over all the time?
23:51What you say to me?
23:53How you treated me?
23:54What would the people say to you that would get you so mad?
23:57Stupid.
24:01Ignorant.
24:05You ain't gonna have to be nothing.
24:09You stink.
24:13You're a black dog.
24:17I used to get all kinds of stuff.
24:20From other kids or from adults?
24:22Other kids, from adults, teachers.
24:24Teachers told you these things?
24:25Mm-hmm.
24:27When I started working with him, he was going to the junior high school,
24:34which was right across the street from my office.
24:36Actually, he wasn't going to school, but that's the school he had been assigned to.
24:41And he said he was not going back to school anymore.
24:46And I talked to him and asked him why.
24:49And I said, Eric, but you have to try, you know.
24:52Well, Nancy then had him tested because she thought maybe he was learning disabled.
24:56The testers came back and told me there's nothing wrong with that boy.
25:00He just hasn't been taught to read.
25:02That's all.
25:03He was trying to do better, although he was handicapped with the area reading.
25:14But he tried at one point when he did not want to go back to school and he was 16.
25:22And we worked and got him into the job corps.
25:26I got trades.
25:27I learned how to drywall, paint, stucco.
25:32Um, I learned trades that would get you money.
25:40And they had very good instructors.
25:43Regardless if they was prejudiced or not, they didn't care.
25:45They guys taught you.
25:46Eric gives Nancy McAllister the credit for giving him the push he needed to turn his life around.
25:59Today, he works with the National Park Service and sings with his own band.
26:03But his mother, who nicknamed him Cheetah, has never heard him sing.
26:18And they often argue over how she raised them.
26:21I mean, I did everything to support my kids.
26:26But I still felt guilty of the way they came up.
26:34I just felt like I could have did better.
26:36You could have gotten a real job.
26:39What was the real job for black people then?
26:43Well, we're talking about the 60s and 70s.
26:45Right.
26:4660s, late 60s.
26:48All right, what kind of job you call a real job for me?
26:51Oh, you probably could.
26:52Let me see.
26:52Blue collar job.
26:53A job like, um.
26:55Domestic work.
26:57Well, no, domestic work.
26:58Not without an edge.
26:59She didn't have any education.
27:00Did you ever think about going back and learning how to read, even as an adult?
27:05Now?
27:05No, I'm thinking back to when you were in your 20s.
27:07There were a lot of opportunities during the 60s for people to go back in.
27:12In my 60s.
27:13In the 60s would have been, let me see.
27:15You were in your 20s.
27:16In your 20s.
27:17In your 20s.
27:18Okay.
27:18There were a lot of chances for people to learn how to read, even when they were in their 20s.
27:24During the 60s.
27:25I mean, there was a lot of programs.
27:27Black people.
27:27Black people.
27:27Yeah.
27:28Are you all right?
27:29Yeah.
27:30Mr. Dash, where is she back?
27:32I'm not crazy.
27:33Yes, you are.
27:34I know that in 1960, during the height of the movement, during the height of the great society.
27:38But I want to introduce something here.
27:40Do it.
27:41In terms of Rosalie's isolation.
27:42The Civil Rights Movement was a middle class movement that deeply affected the middle class
27:47and opened up opportunities for the middle class.
27:50Rosalie was not in the middle class.
27:52So she was on the margin.
27:54Not only was she on the margin of the society as a whole, she was on the margin of black society as well.
27:59Most of Rosalie's ten brothers and sisters made it out of poverty into the middle class.
28:09Her brother Ben owns his own cab.
28:12He was raised by his grandparents and retired after 27 years in the civil service.
28:18He feels Rosalie is responsible for her own mistakes.
28:20Rosalie's sister Wanda is 18 years younger.
28:27She's a former welfare mother herself, who worked her way off the rolls 20 years ago.
28:32I will never understand why she ended up the way she did.
28:35There are some people like Rosalie, I know that, but there are a lot of people, a lot more people like myself,
28:42who didn't try to live on the welfare but used it until they could get on their feet like the welfare was supposed to be constructed to do.
28:56Welfare is nothing to play with.
28:58It takes away your pride.
29:00It takes away your dignity.
29:02You have to go in there and tell them all your business.
29:05But if you've got these babies, who else are you going to go to?
29:09And if welfare would, some of these women that, like I did, kept right on having babies like that,
29:19and kept right on going to the welfare, no.
29:22If welfare stopped, maybe you got two children, you got three children.
29:30I'm sending you this much of money and this much of food stamps.
29:34Now if you jump up and have some more babies, you take care of what you get from us now.
29:41But working in the Cocoa Club in the 60s, Rosalie felt her welfare check just wasn't enough.
29:50So she started selling heroin while she was waitressing.
29:55By the early 70s, she ran 17 different shooting galleries in her apartment complex.
30:01Then she started using her own product and became a junkie and a jailbird.
30:05Over the next 15 years, she was imprisoned a dozen times.
30:10When I started doing dope, I enjoyed it.
30:14It gave me energy.
30:15It gave me, you know, courage to...
30:18If me and you got in an argument last night, and I didn't have the courage to tell you to go to hell,
30:24let me shoot some dope.
30:26I bet I could tell you then.
30:29You know, it just gave you courage.
30:30But after a while, it wears off.
30:33And you wake up in the morning, you're sick.
30:35And you need another one.
30:38Believe me.
30:39My mother kind of lost respect for herself.
30:44She did.
30:45She lost a lot of respect for herself.
30:48People looked at her as being Miss Rosalie.
30:50And she went from Miss Rosalie or Miss Rose or Miss Drug Addict.
31:02That's a big drop.
31:06And funny, I used to see my mother sometime and act like I didn't.
31:16Because of the embarrassment.
31:17I knew I had to have a fix.
31:21And I would do anything to get it.
31:25To get that fix.
31:27Boy, that was stupid.
31:29And I did it.
31:31And before I knew it, my daughter was haunted.
31:35My son was haunted.
31:38My other son was haunted.
31:40Because they saw me do it first.
31:51Rosalie's son, Ronnie, started using heroin when he was 15.
31:55He agreed to be interviewed only with a home movie camera.
31:58And after smoking a small rock for courage.
32:07He saw you.
32:08Ronnie told me he started shooting up to cure a bad stammer.
32:14You know, it made me overcome my shyness.
32:17Because I was scared to talk to girls.
32:19When I take the drugs.
32:23Casanova.
32:24I knew all the words I've seen on TV.
32:26He said his mother told him to support his own drug habit.
32:29So he helped her sell marijuana.
32:31I was helping her so I can, you know, do what I had to do.
32:36Just like when she was selling drugs, you know.
32:38I was the one that go get the refund.
32:40I was the one that cut it up.
32:42And I was the one that bagged it up.
32:45I was the one that took something outside.
32:47Did you think what you were doing was wrong?
32:49Or right?
32:49Or did you care?
32:50Or was it just about money?
32:51Well, I knew what it was.
32:52I, well, I'll tell you the truth, but, you know, in a way I knew it was wrong.
32:56Because I was old enough.
32:57I was old enough to know it was wrong.
33:00But, the way I was putting it, I was helping my moms.
33:04And I was making a little money, too.
33:09I don't know.
33:11I'll tell you the truth, drugs better than messing my life up.
33:13I was in drama, I was in acting groups, singing groups.
33:20Wanted to be a singer.
33:26And I turned around and set up and take care of my mother.
33:30Still doing the same thing I was doing when I was a teenager.
33:37But, life goes on.
33:38There's water on your braids, I can't, but it'll never come back.
33:47Rosalie's oldest son, Bobby, got addicted to heroin in Vietnam.
33:52He and his mother and siblings often shared needles.
33:55Last year, he died of AIDS.
33:59Rosalie Cunningham also has the AIDS virus.
34:02When I look back on it, I think this is one of the single worst things that could have happened to my family, the drugs.
34:12I mean, a family can lift themselves up from, you know,
34:15degration, disrespect, and all that other thing like that.
34:20And bring about respectability in their life.
34:22But, drugs tend to grab a hold of you, you know.
34:25And people remember you from that.
34:27You know, this guy, he's been on drugs and all this and that.
34:28Until you do something very uplifting, you know, something very, where society can say,
34:35God, this guy comes from a long way.
34:38Alvin Cunningham is the son of Rosalie's brief marriage.
34:42He works for Metrobus.
34:43He's never been in jail and says he's never used drugs.
34:47He was the first of the two that I interviewed, between Alvin and Eric.
34:51And it became clear to me that he had an experience as early as elementary school,
34:57as early as the first or second grade, that really, to me, determined the course of his life.
35:01And that was he developed embarrassment, shame and humiliation about living on welfare.
35:08It was still that, that welfare image, that, you know, public assistant image, and it disturbed me.
35:16And it's just something that lingers in one's mind.
35:20You know, and it puts you on offensive.
35:22And I couldn't accept it.
35:25Couldn't accept it then, and I don't accept it now.
35:28Because Rosalie and her family were welfare poor, there was a truck that came around on a monthly basis with surplus food.
35:35This is before food stamps.
35:37When Alvin heard that horn, or saw the truck, or knew the truck was coming, he would take off running.
35:43Alvin, he just had a bad case of, oh, mama, Jesus.
35:48You know, he just didn't want no girls, or nobody seen him do that.
35:52But I had to feed him.
35:55But he wasn't big enough to go out on his own.
35:57But with that door shut, Alvin ate, like everybody else.
36:02He says he went through his life looking for those who could teach him the values that would take him out of the ghetto.
36:09The entire family counts on him in times of need.
36:13Alvin, Alvin and Cheetah, them the best two sons she got.
36:20Right, they're the best ones.
36:22Them the ones that didn't get in the drug, didn't get caught in the drugs.
36:26You know, to make something good out of itself.
36:29But the rest of us is like, we failed.
36:33We can't get up.
36:35Patty is Rosalie's heart.
36:37She first used drugs when she was 13, and she never stopped.
36:42Amphetamines, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, she's tried it all.
36:45I didn't feel no pain out there because I was drugging.
36:50And before any pain come to me, I'll just drug, you know, get high, drinking, shooting, smoking.
37:00I'll be with five, six men at one time, and I hate men.
37:04She has her reasons.
37:05Back during Rosalie's first imprisonment, when Patty was just eight, she was raped repeatedly.
37:11She laid out to me how she'd been sexually abused as a child, by male relatives.
37:22And I said to myself, well, this explains a lot to me.
37:28She had also told me that this was the first time in 14 years she'd been without drugs during this stint in jail.
37:34And I assumed that she constantly anesthetized herself over these memories.
37:42I didn't know there was more to come, and then she's blurted out, and my mother prostituted me.
37:47Well, I didn't know that.
37:48As Patty got older, Patty started getting involved with my tricks.
37:55And I couldn't even, I didn't try to stop her, because the men, the same with all, they liked her.
38:04My daughter, Patty, is beautiful to me.
38:07And she started telling me, Mama, I can make this as much money as you can.
38:14And we kept running on doing it together.
38:17How could you do that to your daughter?
38:19I didn't do it to her.
38:21It's almost like she was helping me to help, to buy for my children.
38:27I'm not angry with my mother.
38:29I love my mother.
38:30Patty agrees she was helping her mother.
38:32But it's also clear that the 11-year-old felt she had little choice.
38:36Well, she was over there one day when he was having sex with me.
38:41And, um, you see, I wasn't doing it right.
38:45Because this time he just took my whole little body and just lifted up like that, you know.
38:50And he was on his knees.
38:52And that was really killing me.
38:54And I just said, I ain't taking no more.
38:56I don't want no more.
38:57You're really hurting me.
38:59So he said, come on.
39:01I said, I don't want to do it no more.
39:02It really hurts.
39:03So he left.
39:04We got my mother.
39:05She was in the living room with his kids.
39:08She came in there.
39:09And he said, and she said, no, I told her, I said, Mama, he's really hurting.
39:15I can't take no more.
39:18She said, you go and you do this.
39:21Do this before we can help him go.
39:24Come on, hurry up.
39:26I said, Mama, hurry.
39:26And I was crying.
39:28And she said, well, I'll talk to him.
39:29He ain't going to do it so hard.
39:31Just go ahead and do this before we can go.
39:34It was like a thing is a mother is selling her daughter.
39:40Her long fall ended with crack and prison.
39:44Patty is serving seven years.
39:46She set up her boyfriend to be robbed by crack dealers to whom she owed money.
39:50They killed him.
39:51I wish I had my Patty out here.
39:54I always call her my Patty because she is my Patty.
39:58And I wish she was out here because she don't have no business in that jail.
40:06If anybody should be in jail, I'm the one.
40:09I put her in there because the prostitute making money and all that.
40:17I did it.
40:20I started her like that.
40:22And now that's her thing.
40:25Now.
40:26Rosalie's story hit the streets last fall.
40:33Washington was mesmerized.
40:35The initial reaction when I read about this woman's background is I felt sorry for her.
40:41I thought, there's a lot of pathos in her story.
40:45Then I got to the part where she's doing the speed balls.
40:48And I'm thinking, my tax dollars, I'm paying for her drug habit.
40:53Excuse me.
40:55And then I got to the part where she prostituted her 11-year-old daughter.
41:01And my stomach just went in a knot.
41:03And I just wanted to cry.
41:05It just broke my heart.
41:06I thought, how could anybody do that?
41:08One man called and said to me, he said, you've given me a headache.
41:12And after he let me get a word in, because he went on from there, I said, well, look, giving you a headache was my intention.
41:19And he didn't know what to say.
41:20And he said, what do you mean?
41:21I said, well, this is a horrible situation.
41:23And it's a situation that more and more people are caught up in.
41:27The number of people who are living in this situation have tripled.
41:32The numbers have tripled since 1970.
41:35I think you need to know about it.
41:44In Rosalie's old neighborhood, they remembered her as a wild child.
41:49But they were still surprised by how far she'd strayed.
41:53We run out of oil and our lamps need tripping.
42:05Our days are numbered.
42:07Our strength is fleeting.
42:08And every day of our lives, we got less time and less strength and less life than we had the day before.
42:14I know what I'm talking about. We need a source beyond ourselves.
42:21We're welcome this morning to Sister Rosalie. We're glad to have you.
42:24After 40 years, she decided to come back to this church where she was raised.
42:29You know, when you have a lot of children, and doing things wrong, and go the wrong way, it's hard, you know.
42:42But I thank God for doing something for right here.
42:48But God said, I didn't keep you here for nothing, Cunningham.
42:52And I'm healthy, I feel good, and I thank God for my son.
42:59I can't help it. He just stood by me.
43:02When a lot of people say, man, how could you have a mother like that?
43:05He said, I know what my mother...
43:07Woo!
43:07Yeah.
43:08Yeah.
43:08Yeah.
43:09Yeah.
43:09Yeah.
43:10Yeah.
43:10Yeah.
43:11I know what my mother did to take care of us.
43:17She didn't ever hate us, she didn't ever beat us to death, but she was with us.
43:22All eight of us.
43:24And I just want y'all, please, if you got children that's out there on drugs, please reach out to them.
43:31Because they need you.
43:33They don't realize how much, but they need you.
43:36My mom is not here, my mom is not here, and I hope she can hear me.
43:39I hate, I didn't listen to her, but I know I'll see her one day.
43:45And if y'all accept me and help me, I'm coming back.
43:50I'm back home.
43:51I'm back home.
43:51Amen.
43:51And please help me.
43:55Welcome.
43:56We hadn't always been in church.
44:10God had to deliver us from something.
44:14And indeed, Sister Lee, we want you to know that you've got the prayers of the church, and we love you here at Mount Joy Baptist Church.
44:22God bless you.
44:23May heaven smile upon you.
44:26Let the church say amen.
44:28Rosalie's paid a price for the life she's led, Leon Dash had written.
44:48She's dying of AIDS.
44:50Her dearest child is imprisoned.
44:52Her oldest, dead.
44:55She spent hours praying and judging herself.
44:58Asking questions for which there are no easy answers.
45:02Jesus came to me, baby.
45:05I'm going to let it shine.
45:09Because Jesus gave it to me.
45:12How you doing, baby?
45:16How you doing?
45:18Been a long, long, long time.
45:20I didn't think you remember me.
45:23I didn't think you remember me.
45:24I was a little bad girl, wasn't I?
45:36Mm-hmm.
45:37But you're better now.
45:39Now, Dash concluded, she's looking for peace and a life that has almost none.
45:44Get out of me!
45:48Every morning of her life, Rosalie wakes up at five, her body still craving a fix of heroin.
45:53By 7.15, she's waiting for the van that takes her to the methadone clinic.
46:02Rosalie's invited me into her world with a home video camera.
46:06She spends her mornings in McDonald's, chatting with friends.
46:09By 11, she's back home, a spotless one-bedroom in public housing.
46:18She spends the rest of her days in her bedroom.
46:22She was coughing.
46:23I don't know what.
46:24Over the course of a month, I sat here and watched the legacies of her life come home.
46:30Any recording in Rosalie's house fights the blare of a television and the ringing of a phone.
46:35This call brings good news.
46:40Her favorite granddaughter has given birth.
46:43All right.
46:44Listen.
46:44Listen.
46:46Oh.
46:49Listen to them.
46:50I'm all stressed, wild old man.
46:52But just a half hour later, her relation turns bitter.
46:56Her youngest son, Ducky, 36, calls to say he's coming home from prison.
47:01He needs a place to stay.
47:02All right.
47:03I talked to her.
47:03She's incapable of saying no, but she dreads his arrival.
47:07I really knew that that was the part of my job that came up.
47:12I just was not the judge for that.
47:14Don't give me no trouble, Ducky.
47:16Please.
47:17Ducky uses crack, and she already has one drug-abusing son in the house.
47:23Ronnie cooks and cleans for his mother in exchange for rent.
47:26Each night, he brings home his night's earnings from his job as a chef.
47:29Where is it?
47:30Where is it?
47:31But he has a heroin habit, and by the next morning, the money's off and gone.
47:37How much did he take?
47:40Oh, he gave me $30.
47:41I gave me $6.5.
47:43Okay.
47:43What's your name?
47:44I bought his 24 this morning.
47:47That was $8.
47:50I'm sorry.
47:51She asked me, Mr. Ducky.
47:52I'm sorry.
47:52I'm sorry.
47:53I'm sorry.
47:53That $30 is important to Rosalie right now.
47:57She's living on $445 a month, and Patty, in jail, wants money, too.
48:02Now that Ducky's back, she has three grown children, depending on her.
48:08Mr. Dash, my son Ron is getting on my nerves, because I'm not going to give him another dime.
48:14Rose, that's all.
48:15That's been such a...
48:16Rosalie depends on Mr. Dash.
48:18What did you give to him back there?
48:20I mean, I'm talking about him getting on your nerves.
48:22Yeah, well, he's getting on my nerves very much now.
48:25Very much.
48:26What's Ducky doing?
48:26And I ain't going to cry at home, I guess.
48:30Ducky's still back into, um, stealing bicycles and all that?
48:32Yes.
48:33He got a little girl bike in the house right now.
48:36I wish I'd go home and take a picture of the little sucker.
48:38Where did he get it, bro?
48:39I don't know, Mr. Dash.
48:41A little girl's bike?
48:42A little girl, beautiful pink bike.
48:45And he's trying to sell it.
48:46Right.
48:48It's just that I'm getting it.
48:49My own children is getting on my nerves.
48:52But they've been getting on your nerves so long.
48:54For so damn long, Mr. Dash.
48:57You'd be bored if it wasn't happening.
48:59Oh, Mr. Dash, you know better than that.
49:02You serious?
49:02No, you would have put them on a long time ago.
49:07Rosalie's troubles now extend to a third generation.
49:10While her daughter Patty serves a seven-year sentence,
49:14Patty's son, Junior, is also in prison.
49:17He was born when Patty was 14.
49:19My mother used to come to me and say that my son came to the house and took her money and all this.
49:25I said, you ain't talking about my son.
49:27Because my son wouldn't do that.
49:28I mean, my son wouldn't do nothing bad.
49:30As a boy, he held up an undercover policeman, not knowing it was a policeman, but he thought it was a drug dealer and was trying to get his money.
49:41He got his money, put a .38 in his face, fully loaded, .38 revolver at Clifton Terrace when he was 10.
49:49My son was about 10 then, right?
49:52He was going to be sticking up people.
49:54That's always the way to be an original G.
49:55Yeah.
49:56And, uh, he was breaking...
49:57How do you know how to do all this?
49:58I don't know.
49:59I don't know.
50:00Where was you?
50:01I was shooting drugs.
50:02Junior is now 23 and serving 15 years for attempted murder.
50:08He talked to me by phone from prison.
50:10When I was young, that was a person, you know, back then that didn't have a lot of attention, a lot of love.
50:18I kept a hurt and feeling in me that was bottled up.
50:22And when I was young, anything that really came around me, I would try to hurt, punish, or, you know, anything.
50:29This is Junior's son, James.
50:33He's Patty's grandson, Rosalie's great-grandson.
50:37His mother, Terry, is 15.
50:40This morning, Rosalie and I are dropping off Terry and the baby.
50:44You want me to come in, or you may leave it alone.
50:46You come in.
50:49Home is not a place Terry likes to be.
50:55Once we get inside, I see why.
50:59There's barely a sheet to fit the bed she and her baby share.
51:09Terry's mother's got her own problems.
51:11Still, Rosalie feels she should be doing better for Terry and James.
51:16Her mother's not trying to help her.
51:19Mm-hmm.
51:20Teach her how to clean up and stuff.
51:23Look at her, Mom.
51:25And Roman, 39 cents more.
51:27This is really...
51:28I think Terry reminds Rosalie of herself at that age.
51:31What do you want to do about the kitchen, Terry?
51:34James, all right?
51:36And James of her son, Bobby.
51:39I want to come into Hell Street.
51:41Perhaps she worries she can't help this child any more than she helped her own.
51:45Hell Street.
51:46This story ends where most stories about America's underclass begin.
52:01Two men were shot to death this afternoon in southeast D.C.
52:04The victims were found around 4.30 this afternoon lying on the sidewalk in the 4,500 block of Livingston Road.
52:10This time, one of the victims was one of Rosalie's grandsons.
52:14Rico Leon Cunningham was 15.
52:18In the Washington Post the next day, Rosalie was quoted saying she thought the shootings were drug-related.
52:23She was tired, she told me.
52:28She said she'd done everything she could do to change her life, yet still, bad things kept happening.
52:35I don't know what else to do, she said.
52:38Come on.
52:44Rosalie wasn't at Rico's funeral.
52:47That morning, she checked into the hospital with pneumonia.
52:50It was the same morning Leon Dash found out Rosalie's story had won a Pulitzer Prize.
52:59Around the country now, there's much hand-wringing about what causes young men to express their feelings with guns,
53:06and young girls to reach out, only to find themselves with babies.
53:16We don't know what to do about this generation, we say.
53:20We don't know where they came from.
53:23Leon Dash could tell you.
53:27He asked Rosalie.
53:28Frontline wants to hear your reactions to our programs.
53:44So interact with Frontline by sending your comments by fax to 617-254-0243,
53:50by letter or home video, to Dear Frontline, 125 Western Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02134.
53:58And next week.
54:04This is a fact.
54:08Blue-eyed people are better than brown-eyed people.
54:12It was a daring experiment in prejudice.
54:14I watched wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders.
54:25Can one teacher, in one day, change the lives of her students forever?
54:30Watch Frontline.
54:31Come here, Frontline.
54:33Then they work on us, boys.
54:35All right.
54:36It's the light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, my Lord.
54:44It's the light of mine.
54:46Why don't you stand up?
54:48I'm gonna let it shine.
54:51It's the light of mine.
54:53I'm gonna let it shine.
54:57Let it shine.
54:59Let it shine.
55:00Let it shine.
55:03All around my neighborhood.
55:05Get my feet on.
55:09I'm gonna let it shine.
55:12All around my neighborhood.
55:15Oh, I wish I could sing.
55:17I'm gonna let it shine.
55:18Oh, Lord.
55:20Get my feet on.
55:22I'm gonna let it shine.
55:23I'm gonna let it shine.
55:25I'm gonna let it shine.
55:27Let it shine.
55:29Let it shine.
55:32Jesus gave me great.
55:35I'm gonna let it shine.
55:39Oh, Jesus gave me great.
55:43I'm gonna let it shine.
55:46Jesus gave me great.
55:50I'm gonna let it shine.
55:52Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
55:56and by annual financial support from viewers like you.
56:04Frontline is produced for the Documentary Consortium by WGBH Boston,
56:08which is solely responsible for its content.
56:16For videocassette information about this program,
56:19please call this toll-free number, 1-800-328-PBS1.
56:33This is PBS.