# Money Rock: A Family's Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South - Hardcover

by **Pam Kelley** (Author)

**"An ambitious look at the cost of urban gentrification."  
\--**_Atlanta-Journal Constitution_****

"Kelley could have written a fine book about Charlotte's drug trade in the '80s and '90s, filled with shoot-outs and flashy jewelry. What she accomplishes with _Money Rock_, however, is far more laudable."  
\--**_Charlotte Magazine_**

"Pam Kelley knows a good story when she sees one--and _Money Rock_ is a hell of a story. . . like a New South version of _The Wire_."  
\--**_Shelf Awareness_**

Meet Money Rock--young, charismatic, and Charlotte's flashiest coke dealer--in a riveting social history with echoes of Ghettoside and Random Family

Meet Money Rock. He's young. He's charismatic. He's generous, often to a fault. He's one of Charlotte's most successful cocaine dealers, and that's what first prompted veteran reporter Pam Kelley to craft this riveting social history--by turns action-packed, uplifting, and tragic--of a striving African American family, swept up and transformed by the 1980s cocaine epidemic.

The saga begins in 1963 when a budding civil rights activist named Carrie gives birth to Belton Lamont Platt, eventually known as Money Rock, in a newly integrated North Carolina hospital. Pam Kelley takes readers through a shootout that shocks the city, a botched FBI sting, and a trial with a judge known as Maximum Bob. When the story concludes more than a half century later, Belton has redeemed himself. But three of his sons have met violent deaths and his oldest, fresh from prison, struggles to make a new life in a world where the odds are stacked against him.

This gripping tale, populated with characters both big-hearted and flawed, shows how social forces and public policies--racism, segregation, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration--help shape individual destinies. _Money Rock_ is a deeply American story, one that will leave readers reflecting on the near impossibility of making lasting change, in our lives and as a society, until we reckon with the sins of our past.

### Author Biography

A former reporter for the _Charlotte Observer_, **Pam Kelley** has won honors from the National Press Club and the Society for Features Journalism. She contributed to a subprime mortgage exposé that was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She lives in Cornelius, North Carolina.

**Number of Pages:** 288

**Dimensions:** 1.4 x 8.3 x 5.9 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** September 25, 2018

## Details

- **Price:** 26.99 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 26.99 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Money Rock: A Family's Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South - Hardcover

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