Le Boogie Woogie: Inside an After-Hours Club

The “after-hours club” is a fixture of the African American ghetto. It is a semisecret, unlicensed “spot” where “regulars” and “tourists” mingle with “hustlers” to buy and use drugs long after regular bars are closed and the party has ended for the “squares.” After-hours clubs are found in most cities, but for people outside of their particular milieu, they are formidably difficult to identify and even more difficult to access.

The sociologist Terry Williams returns to the cocaine culture of...