In America's most dangerous and poorest city, Camden, N.J., bullet holes are visible in a church's stained glass window, crosses commemorating the murdered line the outside of city hall and the police staff is so outnumbered and outgunned, drug deals occur in the open. Rock Center's Brian Williams visits Camden and talks to those fighting to turn around the forgotten city.
By Shoshana Guy, Producer, NBC News 3/7/2013
Crosses on the lawn of City Hall mark lives lost to violence.
CAMDEN, N.J. -- Inscribed on the walls of City Hall are the words of Walt Whitman, the great American poet who spent his final years in this city: “In a dream I saw a city invincible.”
But the decades since have not been kind to Camden. Today it is the poorest in the nation.
Directly in the shadow of the glittering skyline of Philadelphia, Camden has long suffered the indignities that poverty breeds. A drive through the streets of the 9-square mile city reveals a moonscape of crumbling infrastructure and abandoned homes, nearly 4,000 in all.
“I always think of Camden as the best visual aid in America to see what has gone wrong and what is going wrong,” said Father Michael Doyle, who has been serving the city’s poor from his Sacred Heart Church for more than 40 years.
Camden was once a manufacturing boomtown, home to RCA Victor, Campbell’s Soup and the biggest shipbuilding company in the world. But once industrial jobs began drying up decades ago – as they did in so many other cities across the United States – many people left for greener pastures.
Then came a crushing blow: the race riots of 1969 and 1971, which left the city mortally wounded. In the decades that followed, civic corruption and mismanagement rendered Camden increasingly poor and violent. Three mayors have been indicted in the past few decades, adding to the sense of hopeless among residents. ...
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