She was a delinquent teenager, mixed up with crime and drugs. In the 1970s, Star Parker came to Los Angeles with a dream of dancing on Soul Train - and ended up an unemployed single mom, barely literate, and living on welfare. But life on county aid was far from impoverished - she was able to lounge in her own Jacuzzi, party at Venice Beach, bring in extra income with under-the-table jobs, and take the system for all it was worth. It was the power of her Christianity. That turned her life around. But it was Star's no-excuses attitude of self-empowerment that firmly positioned her on the fast track of conservative politics, speaking out against welfare as the No. 1 cause of urban America's moral and economic decline - and in favor of taxpayer vouchers for private school education, banning abortion, and condemning condom distribution in public schools.

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