Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace is an attempt at revealing the way children survive in the poorest congressional district of America, South Bronx, New York. The entire book is based on personal interviews of children, adults, and clergy conducted by Kozol on his numerous trips to the city. Through this book, Kozol tries to reach out to the human conscience and in his thought-provoking style, takes the reader on a journey into the lives of the poorest of poor children (where the median household income in 1991 was approximately $7,600 which was less than one-third of the national average), shedding light on their hopes, struggles, and longing for heaven.
Gunshot wounds, fires attributed to unsafe buildings, AIDS, or cancer are nothing new for the citizens of this district. Gang rivalries and the consequent daily violence often kill innocent bystanders. While the places giving out free needles and contraceptives have long queues, one-fourth of women test positive for HIV. The houses are infested with rats and highly unsafe. Children can obviously not play in the streets because of safety concerns and even in their own houses, have to learn to crawl on their stomachs so that they don’t get shot by the bullets frequently shot through windows and doors. Drug dealers, prostitutes, and criminals are many but the police are too scared for their own safety to respond to calls for help. Most children are born in prison and a lot of them spend a large percentage of their lives in homeless shelters, or with their neighbors or grandparents, as losing parents to prison or AIDS is highly common.
There is a high probability that these children will die young, either from gunshots, unsafe elevator shafts in buildings, fires in which entire buildings burn to the ground, or simply health issues: asthma and other respiratory diseases caused by emotional stress coupled with a hazardous living environment are prevalent among children here at double the rate as compared with children in the rest of the city. They are poorly educated, having little or no access to schools that qualify at best as shabby outfits. In most neighborhoods, even the library doors are barred meaning these children have very few opportunities to better their lives.
Mott Haven, the neighborhood in which the book is based, is one of the most racially segregated places in New York, where two-thirds of the people are Hispanic and one-third, black. The people staunchly believe that it is because their children are brown and black that nothing is seriously done to relieve them of their misery. Neo-liberalism also affects them adversely: The government got these people off the streets and into government housing and it pays the rent for them but this has made this area a ghetto and isolated them from the rest of the world. Kozol shows through these stories the disastrous effects of poverty, segregation, alienation, and the systematic oppression of whole segments of society.
Religion plays a key role in their lives as the church and religion are sources of strength for the citizens of this wasteland. It is through their belief in God that they survive the day-to-day nightmare they live in. One of the many churches which community members rely on for strength and help is St. Ann’s church. It is because of the truly devoted people like Mother Martha, that children get food and that children get to feed and families get much-needed support during hard times, which are faced often. Members of the churches and organizations lend a helping hand to people and other community members also provide whatever possible aid they can at any given time. Faith is a coping mechanism for people in this place and children perceive God and death as liberating forces. They pray to God when they sleep every night, “God bless mommy. God bless Nanny. God, don’t punish me because I’m black.”
They refer to whites as the “ones with clean hands” and think that those people are responsible to make a change for the better. One of the children claimed that he believed Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech is just a lie and it doesn’t exist for them: they are hidden and no one really cares about them. However, their experiences of hunger, hopelessness, and sadness have opened up these children to religiousness and spirituality as they displayed a deep interest in matters of good and evil and this is what helps them endure, day in and day out.
Bibliography
Baum, Gregory. Religion and Alienation. New York: Paulist Press, 1975.
Kozol, Jonathan. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1995.