Dangerous. Dirty. Empty. Run down. Plenty of people wrote downtown Durham, North Carolina, off as a lost cause by the late 1970s. Big Tobacco and the other industries that pumped life into the town shuttered, a highway paved over one of its most historically vibrant communities,derelict buildings lined the streets, and countless efforts to repair and uplift the city failed. Durham's downtown seemed hopeless and dead to outsiders, as well as to many of the people who called the city home. But Durham was never without hope, and its life pulsed beneath the surface, ready for a revolution.

This is the story of that revolution.Eleanor Spicer Rice and Robin Sutton Anders interviewed nearly 150 Durham believers and change makers, including a cigarette roller at Liggett & Myers, baseball team owners,metal workers, building resurrectors, ashoe shine, place makers, restauranteurs, a saxophone player, a university president,an old auto shop owner, beer crafters, bulllovers, a recluse, mayors, bakers, singers, painters, real estate moguls, and people who enjoy the feel of late Durhamafternoons when the sun dips low. Here aretheir stories, and the story of downtown Durham's rebirth. Together, these Durhamites show how belief, the ability to work together, and love for a town can transform a whole city.