CHARLES S. ISAACS has been a schoolteacher, college professor, social activist, community organizer, financial analyst, real estate consultant, gambler, Congressional aide, storyteller and occasional journalist. His undergraduate studies were in Mathematics (LIU-Brooklyn), after which he attended the University of Chicago Law School, living on the city’s South Side, when and where RIOT is set. His later graduate work was in the Social Sciences, earning an M.A. (New School for Social Research) and a Ph.D. (The Union Institute & University).

His most recent book is the award-winning Inside Ocean Hill-Brownsville: A Teacher’s Education, 1968-69.