True Vine: A Young Black Man's Journey Of Faith, Hope And Clarity

John W. Fountain grew up on some of the meanest streets in Chicago, where drugs, crime, decay, and broken homes consigned so many black children to a life of despair and self-destruction. A father at seventeen, a college dropout at nineteen, a welfare case soon after, Fountain was on the verge of giving up all hope. One thing saved him—his faith, his own true vine.

True Vine is John Fountain's remarkable story—of his childhood in a neighborhood heading south; of his strong-willed grandparen...