Cocaine is first given to Black laborers working in the shipyards in the late 1800s to combat fatigue and as a means to force them to sustain longer work hours. Use then spreads elsewhere in the South in the early 1900s.

As cocaine usage spreads in Black communities, media attention on this begins to tell stories of "crazed Black cocaine users," and other stories of violence. No evidence exists that these stories are anything other than fabrications born of white fear.