Wash­ington Heights: That was where I’d found my kind of party people, that 25-to-35-year-­old posse of race-conscious black profes­sionals and community organizers whose politics are Pan-Afrikanist (if not just pro-black)

“Run-D.M.C.’s myth was like Rocky to everyone else’s Apollo Creed. It had to be a myth; no one could possibly be that square.”