All Souls: A Family Story from Southie | Facing History & Ourselves
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All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

In this memoir, MacDonald details his story of growing up in Southie, Boston's Irish Catholic enclave, and examines the ways the media and law enforcement agencies exploit marginalized working-class communities.
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Language

English — US

Subject

  • English & Language Arts
  • Culture & Identity
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All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

Date of Publication: November 2007

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The anti-busing riots of 1974 forever changed South Boston’s working class Irish community, branding it as a violent, racist enclave. MacDonald grew up in 'Southie’s' Old Colony housing project and describes the way this world within a world felt to this troubled, yet keenly gifted observer. All Souls is a testimony to lives lost too early to violence, drugs, and poverty, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be “the best place in the world.”

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