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I’d like to thank John for inviting me to participate in this session.
There’s a disclaimer: I’m not an expert. <chuckle> Maybe
at one time, I was, possibly in the 50’s maybe the 60’s, but
not today so I cannot address some of the deep thoughts that the gangs
are experiencing. Are manifesting today because I’m not there. It’s
a whole different epoch in the community today. Maybe in the 50’s
and the 60’s maybe I was an expert as well as some others that have
been published. Let me just give you a little background. Course my name
is Euseni Eugene Perkins. I’m a native of Chicago. Born 1932 which
means I’ll be 70 years old this year, that’s a blessing. I grew
up 36th and Wabash. And some people call it Bronzeville. There’s
a lot of discrepancies going on in terms of definitions, boundaries. You
talk about the black belt it’s a lot of hoopla on Bronzeville. But
I don’t think we need to get hung up with that. I was born in 36th
and Wabash so that’s in proximity of Bronzeville, it’s really
closer to the Black Belt which began at State Street to Federal. It’s
only about 2 blocks east and west and probably north and south beginning
at 3100 south maybe to 51st was the Black Belt.
Bronzeville today is a much broader area, taking in… well at that
time, 1932 people have identified that area as Bronzeville. Bronzeville
today whereas in the late 30’s early 40’s, expanded over to
Lake Park, 3100 south Lake to 5100 South State Street but the Black Belt
was a very unique area. That’s why they call it a belt. The width
was not much wider than a belt. And it was shaped like a belt. The first
experience that I came in contact with quote gangs or gang related organization
was my uncle was a member of the Four Corners. The Four Corners basically
hung out in the area on the south side of Chicago, at 35th and Indiana.
And they would also call it the Bucket of Blood, the Tray Five. At that
time those communities the streets were identified as tray one, tray two,
tray three, their street was tray five. 35th and Indiana. I was born at
36th and Indiana, I mean 36th and Wabash but that’s in proximity.
And this was possibly after World War II. Now John wanted me to speak
primarily about gangs during the 40’s and 50’s but everything
is a continuum. You just can’t jump into the 40’s without connecting
the 40’s with the 30’s the 30’s with the 20’s and
so forth. And so that’s why I passed out this piece here and many
of you have gone over a lot of this. The dates may not be that accurate,
dealing with the evolution of American gangs but I’m sure you’ve
had this background.
This might just reinforce some things that you’ve already talked
about in terms of the gangs have been a part of American culture ever
since America became America in terms of before the Revolution, the gangs.
At least the British thought that the colonists were gangs and they called
them gangs. Because they rebelled against the King of England and they
rebelled against the statutes and the laws of England. They were considered
gangs. And so this is just an outline and it’s nothing definitive
but it just gives you a brief overview and then you deal with this whole,
even during slavery, the bounty hunters were considered gangs at least
by those who were fugitives. The enslaved Africans look upon bounty hunters
because many them would be in groups when they went to search after escapes,
slaves, Africans that had escaped. And then of course the whole glorification
of the west, Billy the Kid, Jesse James and so forth. Industrial Revolution,
I’m sure that you’ve talked about this, the first gangs in America
were no doubt immigrants from Europe. Predominately Irish and Italian.
Very prominent Italian and Irish gangs. And so this is the first piece.
I’m just going over this very briefly. And then there’s a continium
of books that I would suggest maybe of interest. Maybe you’ve read
them and maybe you have not. Dealing with violence and gangs. I just make
a abbreviated analysis and then there’s a paper that I presented
as you can see at a conference at Los Angeles last year and this paper
was orginally written and published in the journal of Black Psychiatry,
this article on the gangs. And I think that’s about what you have
in this piece that I presented.
Coming back to the 40’s. The first gang my uncle I believe was active
with the Four Corners. And they call themselves the Four Corners because
they occupied the Four Corners at 35th and Indiana. They were not a gang
in the sense that we know gangs today. They were not really violent. They
were turf conscious and just felt that they should have something to say
about those people that came in that area. And they were probably involved
with some minor crime. Maybe policy. I know it’s been mentioned but
gangs were not really involved in policy on the south side of Chicago.
Not the types of gangs that we perceive today.
Q: Could you explain that a little bit? That’s one of the big
questions that come up.
P: Yeah. In fact I was looking at A&E last night and they talked about
policy on the South side of Chicago. The gangs were not involved in policy.
Policy was controlled by older adults basically. It was a number game,
something like the lottery. I wasn’t that familiar with policy although
I knew a couple policy brothers. People would sell these pieces of paper
in different colors with numbers on them and people would have numbers
that they felt were lucky numbers and they would give em to the policy
runners. You had these little policy dens all over the south side. The
point I’m trying to make without going into the whole culture of
policy because that’s another presentation and I wasn’t really
a part of it. I think I know a couple of policy runners but the gangs
were not involved in policy. They were not controlling policy to the best
of my knowledge. And I think A&E’s sort of made that suggestion.
Interestingly enough I was telling John, they interviewed me on that program,
of course before it was produced, about 4 hours. <chuckle> Didn’t
see a clip. But I was okay because instead they dealt primarily with Bobby
Gore whom I know personally, who was leader of the Vice Lords and they
didn’t do anything about the South Side gangs which basically were
more influential and more notorious at a point than the Vice Lords. And
that’s the Blackstone Rangers, the P Stone Nation, the El Rukns and
so forth. On the south side. But it seems like it just focused in on Bobby
and the West side and the Vice Lords, Conservative Vice Lords.
So to my knowledge he did not have any active street gangs other than
those that emerged after the race riot of 1919 which started at 31st and
the Lakefront. My father was there on the beach. They had the area sectioned
off at Lake Michigan that blacks were limited to swim in a certain area
and so forth. And this, I think it was a 11 year old black kid accidentily
was swimming on the other side where he wasn’t supposed to be and
that started. And he was actually stoned to death and just whipped and
beaten everything after he came out of the water. My father was there
he was probably only a teen at the time and that to some extent started
the Chicago Race Riot. But there was inevitably anyway, the riot was going
to happen just like in Tulsa Oklahoma and Atlanta Georgia, East St. Louis
and other places. Just the straw what broke the camel’s back.
Q: Why was there so much racial tension during that period of time?
P: A Lot of it took place after World War I, blacks who did eventually
join the service to fight for this country hadn’t presented themselves
very well, especially in France and saw a whole different type of society.
And understood what freedom was about and was well received in France
and I think many of these soldiers came home, refusing to be segregated,
refused to go along with the historic pattern that whites and blacks had
manifested. I don’t want to deviate too much but this was particularly
true in Tulsa Oklahoma, the Tulsa Race War. Some of you may or may not
know I’m a playwright. I wrote a play of the Tulsa Race War which
was taken to Tulsa Oklahoma last year. And no doubt the Tulsa Race War
involved a lot of veterans, black veterans. So I think that most of these
race riots started after World War I, round 1918, 1919, in different parts
of America. So this tension that’s been building up between blacks
and whites or even before but definitely after Reconstruction when certain
promises were not made. Blacks just get tired of being insulted by whites
and began to retaliate. And to the best of my knowledge I think that most
of the white gangs would come over into the Black Belt and harass, intimidate,
and fight blacks, be as destructive as possible. And many of the young
blacks organized themselves to defend the community. Of course the first
large migration of blacks began to come to Chicago around the early 1900’s.
You didn’t have too many blacks in Chicago even at that time, we
talk about 1918, 1919. And so young people no doubt pulled together to
protect the community against invading whites which seemed like they had
carte blanche to do whatever they want.
We also know that the Chicago Human Relations Commission at that time
in it’s final report indicated that black youth were not the initiators
of this and that a lot of the gangs came from the Back of the Yards community
where our present mayor’s family lived. And his father it’s
been documented was a member of the Hamburg’s. You may of heard this,
Hamburgs. Have any of you heard about Mayor Daley’s involvement in
the Hamburg and some of his associates, which was an athletic club in
the Back of the Yards area. From that particular organization came a lot
of judges, lawyers, and so called prominent people in politics. But they
started in this athletic club called the Hamburgs Athletic Club. You had
a lot of athletic clubs during the 20’s and the 30’s. Especially
in this area. This area was very active with gangs. Probably more active
than the south side. You had the Italians, you had the Mexicans, you had
some Irish, you even had Jewish gangs, just about every ethnic group.
This was a very diverse community. Especially beginning around Halstead
and at that time many of you may know that area was called Jewtown. Mainly
because most of the merchants were Jews and they had outdoor vendors that
would sell to the general public on weekends. And so this area on the
West side was really infested with gangs. Just about every group. Very
true, black gangs were in this area, jumping around a little bit though
just give you a little background of this particular area. The two prominent
black gangs that I remember were the Imperieal Chaplins and the Clovers,
c-l-o-v-e-r-s, whom eventually moved further West and began to identify
with the Vice Lords and the Egyptian Cobras. Now they didn’t mention
Egyptain Cobras at all yesterday, they just the Vice Lords. But the Egyptian
Cobras was more dominant than the Vice Lords in Lawndale at one time before
the Vice Lords took over and became the most dominant street gang on the
West side. Prior to that you had the Egyptian Cobras, they didn’t
even mention the Egyptian Cobras. And I think Egyptian Cobras actually
started in this area under the name Imperial Chaplins.
So go back to the South side where I was born, I eventually moved into
the Ida B Wells which was the housing project, public housing. And one
of the gangs that emerged out of the housing project, Ida B Wells, 39th
and King Drive, at that time it was called South Park, you probably went
East to Cottage Grove which was 800. South Park was 400, 39th Street and
37th Street, Ida B Wells. I thought it was paradise in terms of where
we had grew up in a tenement that was before we moved into Ida B Wells.
And a gang developed called the Deacons. And I know quite a bit about
the Deacons because my oldest brother was the warlord of the Deacons.
This was a time when gangs did not have the weaponry that these gangs
have today. They did not have the temperament that these gangs have today
and when conflict arose between two different gangs they would literally,
not all the time, but have the warlords to negotiate how the confrontation
would take place and at that time the battleground between gangs usually
took place at a park at 36th and Vernon. My brother Robert was a warlord
so he had to go out an fight another warlord or else make some type of
arrangements in terms of, and that was pretty accurate of A&E how
warlords get together and… there is honor even among thieves and
gang members and so forth and so we decided you had to use brass knuckles,
you have guns, and bats. Bats were very popular and (you) could get a
hold of a bat or club or something like that. But very few weaponry. During
the 10 15 years that I lived in Ida B Wells I can only think of one gang
shooting and this was from the 40’s to the early mid 50’s. I
can only think of one gang shooting and that was an accident because a
woman, it was a young lady that was shot accidentally by another gang
member.
There may been some shooting at each other but killings, to my knowledge,
where you had the Deacons which at that time was perhaps the largest street
gang on the south side second to the Destroyers. The Destroyers lived
north of 35th Street. 35th Street was the dividing line. We called the
Tray Five the Bucket of the Blood. Because Friday Saturday nights by the
(fights) took place. Lot of confrontations. The Destroyers were north
of the Deacons which primarily was in the Ida B Wells. And south of the
Deacons you had the 13 Cats. Now there’s more than 13 of them, they
call themselves the 13 Cats. And you have other gangs in that area. They
didn’t go too far south. Basically you could almost say that 43rd
street was the line of demarcation for gangs. I’m talking about the
40’s and 50’s. They were not spread all over in Englewood and
Woodlawn as they are today. You probably had groups of kids acting out
and fighting each other but I’m talking about gangs that perceive
themselves as being somewhat, I don’t want to use the word criminal
focus but maybe that should be used because they get engaged in criminal
acts of deviance.
And the Destroyers and the 13 Cats. So you probably had groups south of
43rd but not organized. Gangs during that period probably wore their colors.
They had sport jackets. Real colorful sport jackets. The Deacons colors
were yellow and purple I think. You have some …Los Angeles Lakers.
Everywhere bright colors. Most of the gangs during the 40’s would
wear sweaters or else jackets and sport jackets that they would buy usually
in what they Jewtown that’s where you have these athletic stores
and you can get the best buys. So the gangs did flaunt their colors, they
didn’t use the word colors but they wanted to show there was some
unity among a group of young people that identified with certain problems
and they wore these gang jackets and sweaters to school and there was
no effort on the part of the police to prevent that but they were easily
spotted. Of course if you’re involved with a gang you have a gang
jacket on and you’re easily identified.
I stayed in Ida B Wells for about 12 years basically the Deacons were
(into) drugs… Dopeville USA, a lot of people don’t know this,
Dopeville USA was at 39th and Cottage Group or else Oakland Boulevard,
they called that Dopeville USA, it was all hotels, rich hotels. You had
more dope, especially heroin, in that area than any other area in the
country literally at 39th, 40th and Cottage Grove, on Oakwood Boulevard.
That’s why they call it Dopeville USA. Gangs were not involved in
any of that stuff. You had drug dealers and, but they would not solicit
gang members to help them and to sell the drugs. In fact that was discouraged.
Of course they were not selling to young people. They were just selling
to their own peers. Used to see them all the time. Used to call them junkies.
But the drugs have always been in the black community contrary to some
things that we have heard recently and some drugs are new. Of course crack
cocaine is new, you didn’t have that during this period. And of course
marijuana is everywhere every time you look around. But heroin was the
major drug in that area. The point I’m trying to make again is that
the gangs were not involved in that. You may have had one, two gang members
caught up with drugs, as my brother Robert finally got caught up with
drugs but that was not something that the gang endorsed for any of its
members to use drugs. And they definitely were not selling drugs. Drugs
were being sold, I imagine at that time organized crime had a direct hand
in the selling of drugs in the black community if not through blacks some
of the white members of these organized crime right there in the black
community selling drugs. But the gangs were not involved in selling drugs.
Q: I would imagine people couldn’t sell that stuff without Dawson
and the political machine at least knowing and getting their cut out of
it as well. Is that right?
P: Well Dawson, I don’t know if Dawson, that’s interesting I’m
doing some research on Dawson because his great grandson is going to Harvard
University and he’s going to be one of the dream team. I don’t
know if Dawson was caught up with any criminal activity or would have
supported, course he allowed policy to flourish. Dawson was probably the
most powerful influential black politician we’ve ever had in Chicago,
contrary to common thinking. Even more powerful than late mayor Harold
Washington because before Harold was even able to utilize his power it
was beginning of his second term when he took over the City Consol and
we know that he passed away. In fact there was a very good documentary
on Harold Washington on channel 11. But Dawson, Congressman Dawson, he
was a Republican and he became a power broker for Mayor Daley, the senior
Mayor, and literally he ran the south side and controlled all of the patronage.
No one got any patronage, any political job, city, without the endorsement
of Dawson. Ralph Metcalf went through Dawson, Harold Washington went through
Dawson. Dawson was very powerful black politician who started out as a
Republican. For some reason he left the Republican party because he saw
on the horizon Franklin Delano Roosevelt was making a inroads into the
black community and for years of course blacks have been Republicans because
of Abraham Lincoln and so when he made the change, he always had a great
influence on the mayor, Mayor Daley, and they were buddies for a long
time and Dawson, as I indicated, literally controlled the south side.
He did not care much for Dr. Martin Luther King. He didn’t support
civil rights. He didn’t think that was so important so he got these,
lot of black nationalists, including myself possibly, really didn’t
like Dawson. But Dawson was about getting jobs for people, seeing that
the garbage was picked up, seeing that the streets were being cleaned,
the point I’m trying to make here, I don’t think Dawson had
any direct involvement with any criminal activities. He ….. was not
involved or supported the civil rights movement and was very pragmatic
in terms of what he felt was in the best interest of the black community.
And so he did, I think, a disservice to the black community because he
kept the plantation together. And when you really look at it from a historical
point of view, Robert Taylor homes would not have ever been built, Stateway
Gardens would never have been built and the south side as it is today,
the so called ghet-colony. And I don’t the use the word ghetto, I
use the word ghet-colony because when you use the word colony it has some
political inference. In fact in this book which I wrote in 1975 I use
the word ghet-colony.
And at that time, when I graduated from George-Williams I spent, I did
my first fieldwork at Woodlawn Boys Club, that was at 64th and Woodlawn.
This was in the early 60’s or the late 50’s. That’s where
I first meet Jeff Fort. Many of you heard the name Jeff Fort, right? …
He’s still a legend in Chicago especially on the south side. Who
I think has serving time in the maximum security prison in Colorado I
think. He and Hoover. Well that’s the first time I met Jeff and I’ll
be very brief about this. At one time I knew personally the top gang leaders
in Chicago. Jeff Fort, David Barksdale, and Bobby Gore. Those were the
three so called major gang leaders. David Barksdale of course was the
leader of the Disciples which later became the Black Disciples and the
Gangster Disciples. Jeff Fort of course the Blackstone Rangers which of
course went through a whole evolution: Blackstone Rangers, the Mighty
P Stone Rangers, and it became the El Rukns and of course on the West
Side Bobby Gore who many of you saw the other night on A&E who came
from the South side. He and Jeff Fort were cousins. I don’t know
how many of you would know that. I wouldn’t expect you to know that
but I don’t know how many people know that. That’s why you never
have any real conflicts between the Vice Lords and the Rangers, the Blackstone
Rangers because Bobby Gore and Jeff Ford were cousins.
And so my first experience with gangs that were in their developing stage
took place when I was doing my fieldwork at Woodlawn Boys Club. Now it’s
interesting that there’s been a path that young boys tend to get
in trouble when they’re not being properly supervised. Young boys
tend to get in trouble when they’re not involved in any organized
activity. Young boys tend to get in trouble when you just let them do
what they want to do. This is what happened with a group of young boys,
cause that’s all they were at the time, 11, 12, 13 years old. LaMar,
Gene Harriston, I knew just about all of them. The boys club literally
put them out. Put them out on the streets because they were not acting
right. Now the name “Ranger” was a category which was if you
were a member of the boys club between the ages of 9 and 12, I believe
that those were the ages, you were automatically a Ranger. Now most of
these guys lived on Blackstone. Not all of them but most of them lived
on Blackstone when Jeff and some of the other guys were kicked out or
discouraged from participating in the traditional program and could not
adjust to kids that were sort of energetic and wanted to do something
innovate, do something creative, no, these are our rules this is the boys
club and if you don’t do this you cannot participate. So it comes
to the point where they were literally just shoved out in the streets.
And so the name Blackstone Rangers was a name that just came to them very
easy. Because they were Rangers because that was a category of the boys
clubs, now it’s a girls and boys club. I’m talking, you know…..But
at that time the boys club had their own institution from the girls club.
And so the Blackstone Rangers started basically around the Woodlawn Boys
Club.
Bob Shorty was the executive director, he was white. I’m not saying
that to blame this on Bob Shorty I don’t think that it was his fault.
I just think that the policy of the boys clubs the rules and regulation
just did not relate to the lifestyle and the ethos that these young boys
were emerging. And here we’re talking about the late 50’s to
the early 60’s. And here I’m observing some of this coming in
contact with some of these young boys and then eventually I came on the
West side worked for the west side for about 20 years at the Henry Horner
Boys Club. I worked in one of the first outreach detached worker programs.
This is a study that came out of the Chicago Youth Development Project.
It was coauthored by Hans Mattick… Hans was a criminologist with
a background, interesting, he eventually took his life I think. I don’t
know if that’s accurate but I think he did. This may have. It was
very interesting. He was committed, he was devoted, he had some criminal
background himself but he wanted to see change and he wanted to do something
that would help these young boys that were out on the streets and so he
was… John Calloway, was channel 11 commentator, you’ve heard
of John Calloway. So this was called the, it was called the Youth Development
Project, and I was an outreach worker, which means that we worked on the
streets with quote gang members. We had a little money. I think they gave
us a 100 dollars a month and we had access to what we have on.
So at that time you had a whole movement starting in Chicago, outreach
workers, the YMCA called their workers detached workers and extension
workers. Those were the three names. Basically we were called extension
workers. We were called extension workers with the Chicago Boys Clubs,
the Henry Horner Boys Club which right across from the United Center now.
It still stands here because our policy was that our extension workers
also had access to the Boys Club. That we just did not work out on the
streets. We’d spend a lot of time out on the streets but we also
had access to the institution. Lot of the detached worker program literally
just worked out in the streets. The local YMCA’s and settlement houses
really did not want these quote gang kids in their facility. So it’s
just a slight difference, extension worker, detached workers, street workers.
Now the Chicago Youth Development Project came about as a result mobilization
for youth in New York which started I think in the late 50’s. Outreach
Program where they begin to hire workers who work out in the streets.
I think they did show some of that in the A&E documentary the other
night. And so we began to emulate that concept because the kids were not
coming into the club because these clubs, agencies were conventional agencies
and these youth just could not adhere to the rules and the guidelines,
activities that were not really too creative, too innovative for this
population. So we went out in the streets, hung out with the guys, and
eventually I became the supervisor of that program, Chicago Youth Development
Project, so that’s… And then later I went to…the Better
Boys Foundation Family Center where I was for 18 years and that’s
where I ran into the Vice Lords, Egyptian Cobras and some of the other
gangs and those gangs are discussed here. Those were mostly West side
gangs.
Now I’m living on the south side. I know most of the gang members
on the south side. You’re talking about the late mid 60’s. The
Disciples and the Blackstone Rangers began a fierce intergang war. It
really was very fierce. Lot of shooting and a lot of killings. David Barksdale
and Jeff Fort. I guess they just hated each other and so you had this
conflict between these two large gangs on the south side. On the west
side the Vice Lords were beginning to overtake the Egyptian Cobras and
the Egyptian Cobras were dying out. In fact the leader of the Egyptian
Cobras eventually worked for me... It’s always good to hire a former
gang member. It gives you a sense of protection and an entrée into
some of the other gang members. So all that was taken place on the west
side. And a lot of the conflict between the Vice Lords and the Egyptian
Cobras but then you have other groups on the west side. The south side
was predominantly only two groups, the Rangers, the Blackstone Rangers
and the Disciples. They do not call themselves the Gangster Disciples
or the Black Disciples. That didn’t take place until Larry Hoover
was incarcerated and Shorty who was his ruler inherited the leadership
after David Barksdale was shot down I think after leaving a tavern. And
Larry Hoover incarcerated. I’m talking about, I knew Larry Hoover
very well. I knew just at Pontiac Prison. I used to go up to Pontiac Prison
for three years. At that time a lot of the gang members were being incarcerated.
Jeff Ford, Larry Hoover, Barksdale, and within your prison community they
literally controlled the prisons. I know that for a fact. Especially Pontiac
there’s no doubt about it. Gang members literally controlled the
prisons. In terms of the, when I control, they could do what they wanted
as long as they did not interfere with the administration or do any harm
to the guards. Because each tier, the Vice Lords had their tier, the Cobras
had their tier, the Blackstone Rangers had theirs. Those that were involved
with the Islamic faith had theirs. They literally controlled their tiers.
So when you go there, members get arrested on the streets, they were sent
to Pontiac or Stateville, he would be with his homies because they were
assigned to a tier where this particular group was prominent. And that
went on for many many years at Pontiac and Stateville. I don’t know
about Menard or some of the other prisons.
The point I’m trying to make here …is that in the late 60’s
early 70’s the gang members, leaders were being incarcerated because
they had attempted to participate, some of them, to some extent, in the
civil rights movement. And I was talking to John as we were coming over
here from his office that this area (UIC) was really a battleground that
many gang members tried to shut down the construction sites because too
many black families were being displaced. They did not hire blacks to
work in the construction industry, mostly white construction companies,
at one time they had almost over 2000. I think they showed that off to,
over 2000 or more gang members from all the organizations. That’s
the first time that this has happened. They shut down these sites. If
they could have kept these sites shut down but then some black legits
made a deal. You know. At least this is you know, the rumors, this was
the rumors that got around. That they made a deal and they told the gang
members to stop the demonstrations and this took place at what was probably
a six month period because this was an area that the Mayor Daley wanted
to build this institution here. And many of the gang members felt that
they were being sold out. They didn’t get anything out of it, they
didn’t get jobs, they didn’t get anything but incarceration.
It seemed like after the Chicago plan it was very obvious to the founding
fathers of the city that the gangs constituted a powerful force, especially
when they were unified. And when they could shut down major construction
sites as they did in this area then they could do much more.
And shortly after that, the assassination of Fred Hampton, whom I knew
personally. And Fred was trying to organize these gang members into a
political entity. He challenged them to stop the killing, shooting, and
so forth and to come together and develop a political perspective. This
is what the Jewish gangs did, this what the Italian gangs did, this is
what the Irish… Definitely the Irish. The Irish controlled Chicago
at one time. You got the mayor, the police commissioner, the park commissioner,
just about every commissioner, every high office in the 30’s and
40’s you have an Irish. And yet Irish only consisted of about 3 or
4 % of the population, maybe 5% that’s all. But they literally controlled
Chicago. The political scene. And that went on for some time. Probably
into the 60’s and so forth. But that was because of the formation
of these gangs that helped them to develop this power base and they came
here as immigrants. Black gang members began to say well they did it,
we can do it also. But there’s always two standards toward black
criminality and white criminality. There’s always two standards.
They did it, okay that was righteous. But we ain’t gonna let you
do it. When Fred Hampton who I think was very righteous young man, contrary
to what many people have heard. We know for a fact that when he was assassinated
that day when they raided his apartment that not one shot came from his
apartment. Not one.
(Before) that, I was at a meeting with Fred Hampton and two top gang leaders,
I won’t identify them, had met in my office. I can say that. At Better
Boys Foundation. Because at that time the gang members were beginning
to resent the Panthers because a lot of these young brothers was beginning
to join the Panthers, they wanted to do something righteous. They wanted
to do something liberating. They were tired of these gang bangers fighting
each others. And the appeal that the Panthers had it was a different type
of appeal. So they were drawing some of the perspective gang members from
the gang. Gang members don’t like this because your strength lies
in numbers. And it seemed like there was going to be a confrontation between
the Black Panthers and some of the gang members. But Fred Hampton was
not one to back down. He wasn’t going to back down. And he says look,
let’s come together and talk about what we can do for each other
to help the black community. And they had many meetings. But I know of
one meeting that took place at Better Boys Foundation and at that time,
..(Hampton said) We don’t need to recruit any kids. They just come
to us because they want to do something righteous. So we not out there
trying to recruit, and grabbing kids, flirting kids, like you are. If
they come to become Panthers then that’s the way it’s gonna
be. And we not gonna back down off of that. So they made some type of
agreement and so you did not have the type of confrontation that was being
perceived but we know that the police of course. I can’t tell the
whole story.
The police were everywhere. They had plants working for the Chicago Youth
Commission, and the Illinois Youth Commission. Of course the police department
had their own youth department at the time. Lt. Buckley was the leader.
And so they were everywhere and they did not want to see this alliance.
And many of us, myself included think that’s the primary reason why
Fred Hampton was assassinated. I can’t prove it of course. But because
he was mobilizing these gang bangers at least helping them to think about
the possibility of using the vast number of people that were in their
race for political reasons as the Jewish population had done. Irish, Italian
and so forth. But I think that’s one of the primary reasons because
he became a threat to the establishment because the potential was there.
And so you had these leaders, Jeff Fort was incarcerated, David Barksdale
was incarcerated, Robert Gore was incarcerated.
And the El Rukns were probably a little bit more highly organized. They
had a group called the Main 21 it was like a board of trustees and so
most of these people went into prison. And that’s when they even
organized even more. They became more sophisticated because they came
into contact with other criminals, problems, some people from organized
crime and they really became sophisticated. And obviously when they were
released, the early release program in 1980’s and I mentioned this
in exposure, that’s when all hell broke loose. Because for a brief
period maybe of 1 to 5 years you had very little inter gang violence,
very little drugs being sold by young people. Late 70’s early 80’s
the whole thing changed abruptly. Where the gang members began to control
the drugs. And this is the whole beginning. At that point I ceased to
be an expert. Maybe I was an expert before that because I knew some of
the problems that young people went through, maybe there were certain
types of programs that we could provide young people, we could divert
young people from gangs, there were certain strategies we could use and
some of em would actually work. Because all these kids wanted to belong,
they wanted a sense of identity, they wanted a sense of feeling that they
had some power. And some of those things we could provide. Individually
or through certain activities and things like that. But when the drugs
came into the picture and we could not match that temptation. And kids
were then making 50-100-200-500 thousand dollars like that. So consequently
that began to saturate the black community …. There’s no one
that really has an inkling of exactly what to do cause you really dealing
with almost a gangster mentality.
All the gang members know what they’re doing and I understand next
week that you’ll have a young man whom I know personally named Benny
Lee, who was a former gang member. See I never was a gang member, that’s
the last thing in the world I wanted to be a gang member. But I have as
I’ve indicated … I’ve worked with gang members over the
last 30-35 years. I know a lot of them today. They know that I’ve
always tried to be a do gooder, help, redirecting them, maybe that was
successful at times, but I tried to also understand some of the problems
that impinged upon their behavior to cause them to become involved in
some of these criminal activities. So I’m sure Benny could go a little
bit more into what’s happening with gangs today. Because it seems
like it’s all about drugs, killings, shootings and so forth. I still
think that young kids can be helped, can be diverted from gangs. But it’s
becoming more difficult because …(it) seems like violence is permeating
not only in so called gang members throughout society but I think it’s
still possible to reach out. And so you’ve heard a lot about mentoring
programs and rite to passage programs and some of these older gangs like
the Lords, the Vice Lords, these guys are making 20 30 40 50 thousand
of them. I don’t know how much they make, we really don’t know,
making a lot of money. Just killings and shooting and killing and shootings.
Especially in Lawndale and now the Disciples are everywhere. They used
to be just be on the south side now they’re everywhere even in Maywood.
Not only that but they’re all in the suburbs, peddling drugs selling
drugs. It’s a whole different mindset. You don’t have any outreach
programs.
At one time you had CIN – Crisis Intervention Network, which started
in Philadelphia. Friend of mine named Benny Swan, former gang member.
Philadelphia had more intense gang problems than any city in the states,
they had shootings and killing literally almost every day in Philadelphia.
I think one year it was over 600 killings. Literally. In Philadelphia.
Which was probably in the late 70’s. Benny Swan who was a former
gang member came up with this program called C-I-N – Crisis Intervention
Network, where you had former gang members who go out into the community
and try to negotiate these conflicts cause Philadelphia is made up of
these neighborhoods. They didn’t have any large gangs like we have
in Chicago, maybe 50, you call them wolf packs but when you have about
1000 I mean wolf packs all over the city it’s very difficult to change.
And so eventually they imported CIN here in Chicago. But the mayor did
not want any former gang members to be in the program. Programs can’t
work without former gang members. You know social workers people never
had experience with gangs they may have a desire to do something but they
haven’t come out of the gang culture … and so it didn’t
work. They had it (CIN) for two or three years and then they closed it
and then they came up with the, these different statutes if you were caught
selling drugs within a certain area of schools you’d get a certain
amount of time. To my knowledge there is no social service agency that
has gang outreach workers working with gangs. There may be a few churches,
a few individuals that are doing, but not the social service agencies.
When I was working with the gangs on the streets, all social service agencies
had these outreach workers and eventually they combine to… YMCA,
the Chicago Youth Centers, and the Boys Clubs and they combined to organize
what they called Streets, s-t-r-e-e-t-s, it was an acronym. I can’t
think of what that meant. But that was the largest group of outreach workers.
At least it kept you connected with the gangs. You’re out there and
the gang members would not intimidate you. They knew what you were about.
The problem that I had with some of our outreach workers, they’d
over-identify with the gangs. Instead of influencing the gang members,
the gang members were influencing them. They almost turn into gang members.
When you’re supposed to do just the reverse. But you don’t have
that today. To my knowledge you don’t have these workers working
with these gangs out here. Probably too dangerous anyway. I don’t
know what they could do. Cause these gangs basically are about money,
selling drugs, and just about anything goes. And it’s having a great
influence even on younger kids. So maybe I’ll just close at that
note and respond to some questions that John said you had in mind with
some questions that you may…
Q: I’ll start the questions off. You, mention in your book, Explosion
of Black Gangs, that the 40’s had a lot of female gangs. Could you
talk a little bit about that? What was going on?
P: I don’t know if I mention they had a lot. You know the Deacons
had the Deaconettes. And these were just girlfriends of the gang members.
They would just hang around. Most of the, actually girl gangs are in the
Hispanic community. Even today, so I don’t know if that’s into
an explosion. I think I refer to the Deaconettes who some of the members
I knew but they were just the girlfriends. They did not see themselves
as an organized group ready to retaliate or kind of involved in any criminal
activity. I think that most of the girl gangs and even from my contacts
with the public schools, seem like the Hispanic populations mostly (had)
the girl gangs. I can’t think of even the Disciples. They have girls
hanging around and you hear about the Queen D and that she has to have
sex with some of the top gang leaders, that takes place but you don’t
see these girls, to my knowledge, not that organized. I think they’re
only as well organized to a point as the males are. And that they are
probably carrying contraband around, probably involved with drugs or maybe
even some prostitution. Because gangs today it’s not just drugs,
it’s extortion, it’s money that you pass on, laundering money.
These gangs some of them are very sophisticated. So they’re involved
in a lot of things. They have, this is why the El Rukns were cut down
primarily on racketeering charges. And many of the Gangster Disciples
were racketeering charges which is (almost) organized crime. I don’t
think they have reached the level of organized crime, the level of sophisticated.
But many of them were moving in that direction. They have what they call
the Untouchables. Have any of you heard of that term? Untouchables are
young intelligent students who gang leaders see as future supporters,
system. Doctors, lawyers, so forth, accountants. Especially accountants.
You deal with all this money you need somebody to count it right? And
I understand that many gang members are in college. Probably got them
on the campus here. In school, learning professions, still their allegiance
is to the gang. Because the gang’s paying their way. And I know that
for a fact. So that they can develop the support system that organized
crime. Organized crime is successful because they’re spread throughout
the society. In corporate America, especially throughout the law profession,
even in the police department. You know there have been cases in Chicago
where policemen have been identified as active gang members. So the gangs
are everywhere so I can’t really talk about the girl gangs. I don’t
know too much about them. The only ones that I know that were the Deaconettes
and they were just girlfriends basically of the Deacons, I didn’t
see them as organized with any formal structure. The girl gangs that I’ve
heard about primarily in Los Angeles, very active ...
(end of transcript)
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