ABSTRACT
As a part of study of problems in a public housing project, Pruitt-Igoe, David Schulz met Alice Walker, when she was a 15-year-old high school student solidly integrated into the Pruitt-Igoe peer-group society. When he ceased field work with the family two-and-a-half years later, she was a married woman, the mother of two children, and intermittently separated from her 20-year-old husband. The Walker family was some-what better off than most families in the project. For considerable periods of time things seemed to go well for the family, although eventually most of the members came to feel the oppressive impact of the dangers and deprivations of the ghetto. During the summer of 1964 Schulz began regularly to interview Alice Walker about how she spent her time. The adolescent social world was in full summer swing and Alice, although she had lived in the project only a short time, was an enthusiastic participant.
