Summary Of Hard Living On Clay Street

1599 Words7 Pages
The book “Hard living on clay street” by Joseph T. Howell is an ethnography on three different families who lived on or close to clay street. The first family is the Schackelford, they are the poorest family out of the three. Barry, is the only one who works and they lived in a house with seven people, which makes it hard for them to sustain themselves. The second family is the Mosebys, they are in good living conditions, but the couples separate children are the ones who have all the trouble from depending on welfare to needing a house to stay in. Finally the third person is Pete Dale, he is a retired police officer who discriminates African Americans and who encouraged his community to discriminate Blacks. The Schackelford are one of the poorest family on Clay Street because Barry, the man of the house is the only one who works. Since seven persons live in one house, it is very hard for them to afford all their necessities. Barry makes the problem even worse because of his alcoholism, Barry prefers to spend money on drinking than to give money to his wife Bobbi. Bobbi…show more content…
This causes some conflict because he always goes back to his girlfriend. Then there is Phyllis, she is not related to June or Sam, she just lives on Clay street. She has been staying at June’s house and this is causing problems because Sam just wants to go home and relax. Ted and Phyllis have disposable ties to June because they know they can count on her. There is an article named, “Disposable ties” by Matthew Desmond, in this article, Desmond spent a year with two low-income families. His findings were that those who were evicted tenants needed kin support in order to find a place where to live. (Desmond, 2012). The kin support usually included friends or family and that is what Ted and Phyllis were doing, they had June support when they were evicted from their

    More about Summary Of Hard Living On Clay Street

      Open Document