Chicago Street Gangs: A Hell of a Legacy
From the stories of Al Capone and the Chicago Outfit to the legends of Jeff Fort and Larry Hoover, Chicago has had it all when it comes to organized crime and street gangs. Chicago is known as the “city of gangsters” and the “City of Capone” as the saying goes. So the question is, how did Chicago get this reputation? How did Chicago develop such a complex gang culture? I can tell you from over 20 years of research, that this was a buildup over a long time and it all started in the mean streets and hardened slums of some of the toughest areas of Chicago. Racial differences also played a major part in the evolution of Chicago street gangs. This could be anything from being bullied by another race or by society not offering equal employment, housing and education.
Many came from the east coast back in the 1830s and 1840s to the new city located by Lake Michigan with the hopes and dreams to build up a life for themselves. The city was brand new, having recently been converted from a military base and now with a growing population, there were major opportunities for starting up one’s own business and becoming a successful entrepreneur. With the creation of new businesses came the demand for labor which was music to the ears of those from Ireland, Germany and several other countries that were looking for new opportunities in the United States. Soon scores of immigration came to this great city looking for employment opportunities, but many soon found that pay was low and living conditions would not be so great.
The Irish, Jewish and Italian immigrants of the 19th century were downright hated and spat on. This country did not want these ethnic groups to succeed and often discriminated against them by keeping their pay lower and pushing the vast majority into some of the worst ghettos in history. As African Americans began to migrate into Chicago after the Civil War they soon found the same fate or even worse.
In the 19th century there were a few specific areas of this city that had slums. The Near North Side neighborhood in the area that later became Cabrini Green or Little Hell, The Town of Lake which later became the Back of the Yards community in 1889, Near West Side and to a lessor extent Bridgeport. These were Chicago’s ghettos and worst slum areas.
Little Hell was a nightmare and an area where the city pushed all the impoverished Irish and Italians to live in a world of dilapidated housing, without running water as rats and trash were rampant in the streets. This neighborhood was incredibly dirty and the infant mortality rates were incredibly high. A criminal underworld rose up from the slum and began looking to make their own money through illegal means. Anything went, from gambling to prostitution to extortion. Criminal groups would lure young women from other countries offering them a new job and a new life here in Chicago but instead they came to Little Hell and found out the job was prostitution, the vast majority said no way, but once a revolver was pointed at them they had no choice but to comply and begin a new life of selling themselves in these dirty and mean streets. Among the criminals and pimps rose the Irish and Italian mafias that soon controlled the underworld in this neighborhood then eventually city wide.
The Back of the Yards’ Union Stock Yards became the mecca of employment for thousands of south siders. Although stockyards brought employment for migrant workers to support many families it also brought pain and misery for the workers and squalid living conditions for the many residents that had to reside in this neighborhood that neighbored the stock yards. The stock yards dumped piles of trash into alley ways and onto public streets. The yards dumped toxic animal waste into the canal nearby polluting it to the point where it ended up snagging the nickname “Bubbly Creek.” Just like Little Hell, scores of Irish immigrants lived in slummed down buildings breathing in toxic wastes. Eventually impoverished Irish youths started street gangs that became connected to the Irish mafia from Little Hell.
The Near West Side started off as an ideal area for the upper classes of the newly developing city. The exception was the northwest quadrant (United Center area) which was designated for a small community of the first African Americans that lived in poverty. After the Great Chicago Fire the Near West Side soon became swarmed with impoverished and displaced Irish immigrant workers that had lost their homes in the fire, now they occupied the southeast quadrant of the community in the area we know today as “Jew Town.” The Irish did not stay long before they left the area by the 1890s making way for another discriminated ethnic group, the Jewish migrants. This is what gave the area the nickname of Jew Town and became an area of impoverished and hard working Jews. Just to the northwest of them Italian immigrants moved into this large neighborhood in the 1880s establishing “Little Italy.” Over time this became a downtrodden slum neighborhood from Jew Town to Little Italy to the Medical District and all the way up to the United Center area.
These were the first “bad neighborhoods” so to speak. The first areas to breed criminal elements and gangs and was the birth areas of organized crime. By the early 20th century the Irish and Italian mafias had risen to incredible power and had a firm grip on the city. At this same time, African American migration picked up significantly especially during World War 1 when there was a high demand for more workers needed to fulfill the many jobs left behind by the many Chicagoans that went off to fight. This opening also brought many Mexican migrants to Chicago into neighborhoods like South Chicago, Back of the Yards and the Near West Side.
African Americans began to gravitate out of their tightly cramped areas of the United Center area and the South Loop and began to settle in Grand Boulevard, Douglas and Washington Park near the turn of the 20th century. Of course they were greeted with incredible hatred and restrictive racial covenants were attempted to be forced upon them, but that did not stop the black community from flourishing in these communities. Eventually by the 1920s these communities became majority black and the area became known as “Bronzeville.”
The black community of Bronzeville was determined to fend for themselves. The city and the entire nation were not interested in helping assimilate blacks into the rest of society and it was preferred that blacks would live separately in areas of the city designated for black Chicagoans. In the 19th century the city didn’t really have any large enough areas for blacks to live in large numbers. By the 1920s there was such an increase in black migration that an area needed to be designated; therefore, the hard fought battle by the angry white community in Bronzeville in the 1900s decade and 1910s became a losing battle and they all packed up and left. The problem with the white community packing up and leaving is a phenomena we know as “White Flight.” White flight bankrupts black communities because investors no longer become interested in these neighborhoods which cuts off the financial lifeline to these areas. This practice did not destroy Bronzeville right away because black business owners, lawyers, doctors, actors, sports figures moved into Bronzeville and helped financially support the community. Another big financial supporter was the Black Policy Racket which was a form of organized crime that rose up to become a million dollar syndicate. The Policy racket opened several legit businesses in Bronzeville and provided thousands of jobs for the black community. The Policy Kings also acted as guardians for the community by making sure criminal groups and/or gangs did not rise up and get out of control.
Just after World War II, most of our nation was prospering after the war as the Great Depression had finally ended. Many troops came home from the military and were able to secure some great paying jobs. This wonderful new economy did not benefit everyone, mainly the African American community suffered as much of the community thrived on war effort jobs. Not only that, Italian mafia began to muscle in on the Policy racket and by 1952 the Mafia had gained complete control of the racket causing all the Policy Kings to flee the city. As the Policy Kings fled they closed down their legit businesses putting several people out of work.
Bronzeville became economically devastated by the 1950s and middle class African American families sought better neighborhoods for their children to grow up in so they began migrating to other south side and west side neighborhoods that happened to be all-white communities. The communities were not receptive of having black neighbors so protests, violence and white flight became common sights in these areas.
By the 1950s, gangs became very common on the streets of Chicago in the majority of communities. New black gangs were formed to protect their communities and their presence in racially changing communities. White gangs often started out as social clubs but soon gravitated toward fighting to keep their neighborhoods from becoming too racially integrated which brought them into conflict with black, Puerto Rican and Mexican gangs. Mexican and Puerto Rican gangs formed for some of the same reasons as black and white gangs, for the purpose of neighborhood defense and to fight for their ability to live in racially changing communities.
Gangs had been existing in Chicago at least since the 1860s but they were always regarded as petty nuisances while law enforcement focused more on the take down of organized crime syndicates. By the 1950s law enforcement was taken by surprise by the sudden burst of violent street gang activity that sometimes went as far as murder.
Racial tensions would build and frustrations over racially changing neighborhoods and further deterioration of conditions in already poverty stricken areas brought about the rise of super gangs in the 1960s. By the end of the decade black gangs like the Black Gangster Disciples, Black P Stones and Vice Lords numbered in the thousands on the south side and west side streets. The Latin Kings became a giant of an organization with thousands of members on the south side and north side of the city and were found in every area of the city where Hispanics were in larger populations. White gangs like the Gaylords and Simon City Royals became the largest of the white gangs on the north side of the city.
By the 1970s, the super gangs had grown tremendously and now numbered in the tens of thousands. It was now getting to the point where the bigger gangs were swallowing up the smaller gangs. The larger gangs began organizing as syndicates and even began the mass distribution of drugs. Perhaps the first organization to begin mass distribution of drugs was the Black P Stones in 1968 and by 1970 Black Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords followed suit. The Latin Kings became the first of the Hispanic gangs to begin major distribution. The white gangs were on a different agenda as they were emphatic in trying to keep their neighborhoods mostly white. Yes they had some racist beliefs; however, on the other side of the coin enemy gangs were invading their neighborhoods that came with the migration of African Americans and Hispanics from other communities. Sometimes white youths were bullied in racially changing communities which prompted them to join gangs like Simon City Royals, Gaylords or Insane Popes. Then again the white gangs bullied many Hispanic and black youths driving them to join gangs like the Latin Kings and Black Gangster Disciples. It was a back and forth racial war fought by impoverished black, Hispanic and white youths that could not afford to live in better areas of the city or in the promised land suburbs, so they needed to knock each other’s teeth out for superiority of the streets.
In the 1980s, gangs began to involve themselves deeper into the drug trade. It was a slow progression year by year during that decade. By the later 1980s the gangs became heavily vested in the drug trade especially with crack cocaine. Soon gang sweaters were not seen as much anymore, fist fighting was being replaced by violent shootings and group beatings and making money became a hotter commodity. On the bright side the racial tensions tremendously eased off which was heavily encouraged by the rise of the Folk and People Nation alliances that were ironed out on the streets in 1981. Racially discriminatory gangs like the Black Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords and Simon City Royals began to allow other races into their organizations in higher volumes. White gangs began to decrease in number and began to loose the spot light as more and more white families were able to move out to the suburbs leaving the rest left in the city to join mostly Hispanic gangs like Latin Disciples (today known as Maniac Latin Disciples), Latin Kings and Satan Disciples. The leadership of the white gangs like the Gaylords kept packing up and leaving or overall retiring from the gang life which began to collapse the street warrior white gangs of the streets. By the later 1980s being a money maker was slowly becoming more impressive than being a tough guy.
By the 1990s, the drug trade within the gangs became astronomical and the old ways of fighting for your turf and neighborhood were long gone as now stacking lots of money was the new primary goal of the gangs. This greed resulted in a hell of a lot more shootings. As if the 80s weren’t bad enough for gun play, the 90s were even worse. The gangs had grown much larger than ever and had large presences in several suburbs. By this point in time the gangs were in just about every single suburb. The greed over money and drugs caused the gangs to forget all about the Folk Nation and People Nation alliances as violent interalliance gang wars erupted, not only that some gangs began fighting within their factions.
In present day, there is a very slim allegiance within the Folk and People Nations and most of the honor within street gangs is gone. The 1990s saw the last of the old ways of gang banging disappear as it was now all about money, and turf was only to be protected if it was for the sake of protecting profit.
I have so much more knowledge and details all about the creation of the Chicago streets gangs and more in depth details about what I wrote about above on my website. This is like a teaser or a general brief story to begin with. My website https://chicagoganghistory.com/ is a comprehensive site with over 100 pages all about the neighborhoods, public housing projects and each individual gang’s story. I have been studying Chicago street gangs for over 20 years; however, my main focus is on the gang banging in the second half of the 20th century. Please check out further insight into the creation of Chicago gangs and how certain areas of the city became poverty stricken. All sources are cited on my website. Check out the link below.