'Pipe Shop' refers to the black working-class neighborhood in Bessemer (just outside of Birmingham) where Deborah McDowell grew up. Her book begins with her return to Pipe Shop to investigate her father's death, part of the class-action lawsuit filed by victims of asbestos poisoning against the steel mill where he once worked. McDowell's trip home elicits plenty of memories--how her neighbors reacted to bus boycotts and boycotts of white-owned businesses, going to hear Martin Luther King speak, and the murder of her own activist pastor. Leaving Pipe Shop is an evocative portrait of one African American community's struggle to cope with the changes that swept through a nation.