gangs nations peace treaty peace treaties unity gangland george jackson soledad brothers blood in my eye gang war bloods crips latin kings gangster disciples black p stones vicelords ms-13 18th street la eme black guerrilla family aryan brotherhood mexican mafia la nuestra familia el rukns
“Street Organizations” AKA “Gangs” have shown historically that they can move beyond the image potrayed in the media.
- Many Slauson ‘gang’ members joined the Black Panthers’ Los Angeles chapter with their leader Bunchy Carter
- At times like the L.A. riots and Sean Bell killing different gangs have joined together to oppose police brutality
- King Tone of the New York Almighty Latin King & Queen Nation led a movement to bring the Latin Kings back to their roots of stressing community activism and representing for their people and less on criminal activity
- King Jay of the North Carolina Latin King & Queen Nation initiated a peace treaty between many street organizations in North Carolina, continuing with it even after he was shot by an unknown assailant
- Not to mention the fact that most of the modern street organizations were formed to defend oppressed people against the oppressor and harsh conditions brought about due to oppression
- Police and the state apparatus has opposed any type of activism by street organizations unless it is only geared at supporting the capitalist system
This section on Gangs & Unity is dedicated to George Jackson of the Black Panther Party. He was sentenced to a one-year-to-life bid, and it ended up being a death sentence. George Jackson tried to form revolutionary unity inside prisons and pursued united front tactics against oppression and brutality. He attempted to provide an example of how people could struggle together even if they had differences, and he paid with his life for that.
Black Panther Party leader Field Marshall George Jackson. He attempted to form a united front of oppressed people inside prison.
“Uncle George” by Steel Pulse (audio)
this is a fire track of some reggae dedicated to George Jackson
GANGS AND UNITY
“Peace Treaty” – Kam
Bastards Of The Party Trailer
“Gangs” are social organizations comprised of oppressed people who are trying to assert power through illicit channels because the socially acceptable channels have largely been denied to them. When oppressed people feel powerless – a result of the way our society is structured – they search for ways to assert power.
It should be noted that in each of these cases police did all they could to stop the evolution of these organizations.
Black Panther Party leader Bunchy Carter, who transformed the 5,000 strong Slauson “gang” into the L.A. chapter of the BPP. Bunchy had been known as the “Mayor of Compton” because his influence was so great in that area. Bunchy was an amazing organizer and he gave his life for the cause.
King Tone, former supreme Inca of the NY Latin Kings (ALKQN) had attempted to reform the organization and bring it back to its roots of progressive ideas and community activism. King Tone was targeted by police for this and eventually arrested and prosecuted for a weak charge.
Black & Gold – Documentary Trailer About Latin King reform process
“Taco” AKA “Take All Capitalists Out” is the leader of the Black Riders Liberation Party, which was formed out of Crips and Bloods who united inside a youth prison. Taco and the other leaders of the BRLP were incarcerated last year.
Interview with “Taco”
Aqeela Sherrills, Founder and Executive Director, Community Self-Determination Institute; Negotiator, Bloods/Crips gang truce, Los Angeles. You may have seen him on the ‘Tookie Wiliams’ episonde of BET’s American Gangster series.
Aqeela Sherrills is a national leader in the movement for peace and nonviolence among inner city youth and gangs. After losing 13 of his friends in the gang wars of Los Angeles, Aqeela Sherrills and his brother Daude were inspired to bring the neighborhood gangs together in a “peace treaty” between the Crips and the Bloods—a treaty that has held ever since. Football great Jim Brown and Mr. Sherrills founded Amer-I-Can which was a curriculum for the development of self-esteem, teaching individuals motivation and the processes of goal-setting and decision-making. Mr. Sherrills traveled around the country for three years, developing the program and organizing peace treaties in different cities, then went back home to LA to focus on the peace process there. He and his brother subsequently created the Community Self-Determination Institute. They are redefining what peace is and what it looks like for people in the community of Watts. Aqeela Sherrills states that the key is that individuals consistently come back to resolve their conflicts to take the next few steps towards peace.
Through faith and perseverance, Aqeela Sherrills has helped turn the hatred around to create a lasting peace. Global Citizens Circle thanks him for inspiring all of us to make a difference in our own communities.
Rev. Willie Billips with a members of opposing gangs.
Brownsville pastors reach out to Crips, Bloods to fight neighborhood violence
The gang members trickled into the tiny Brownsville church one by one, sitting far apart and seeming distrustful of one another.
Six members of different factions of the archrival Brownsville and Canarsie Bloods and Crips have met several times since September, gathered together by husband and wife pastors with one goal: Halt the neighborhood’s street violence.
“We’re trying to keep the peace among the gangs and in the community. It has really gotten out of hand here,” said the Rev. Willie Billips, who runs the Power Up Faith Fellowship ministry with his wife, the Rev. Karen Billips.
“A lot of the people in the neighborhood are afraid of the gangs, so we’re trying to bridge the gap and get the peace together: Stop the shooting and killing.”
The first meeting was strained as the young men struggled to overcome their color differences – the Bloods choose red; the Crips sport blue.
But with guidance from the Billips, their similarities came out and they began discussing common interests – jobs and ideas about how to stop the feuding.
In the end, their violent experiences drove them to work toward change and plead with youths to stay away from gang life.
“I stared death in face so many times. I’ve had guns to my face, knives to my throat, people threatening to hurt my family,” said a high-ranking Blood as he sat in a church pew.
“It’s a lot of things I regret; a lot of things I still dream about. Living with a lot of guilt – that’s why I’m trying to change things now.”
A wild child, he joined the Bloods at the age of 14.
By 24, he had seen his best friend stabbed to death in a gang fight. His 17-year-old cousin took a fatal shot to the back, and his 16-year-old brother’s life was spared when a bullet strayed.
“When I was coming up, people would say they’d be lucky if they see 21. Now they’re saying they’ll be lucky if they see 18,” said the father of two youngsters.
“Don’t gang. What you see is not what you get at all. . . . It looks fun, but the outcome to it is ridiculous – death is forever.”
As a 10-year veteran gangster with a number of people under him, getting out wouldn’t be easy.
“I would love to get out of it,” he said. “If I had a second chance, I would leave it all alone.”
Members generally have to fight their way in and out of the gang. In reality, trying to get out can be a fatal effort.
“Once you get in, there’s no way out,” said the Bloods member, fixing a hollow gaze on the altar.
“When you fight to get in, they’re not really gonna hurt you, because they want you,” he explained with a sigh. “But when you’re getting out, there’s no use for you.”
Sitting several rows back, a 21-year-old Crips member silently nodded in agreement.
“I lost three friends just in the past year. All of them were murders,” said the young man, who joined the Crips at age 12.
“My cousin was in it, and I always used to follow him. … One day he said, ‘Come to the park. Do you know what time it is?’ And I said, ‘A’ight- let’s do this.’”
That night, he became a Crip.
It was a decision he lived to regret. Still, he is lucky to be alive.
“I’ve been shot at plenty of times. The unnecessary fights. The unnecessary bang-outs on the train stations. … I didn’t really want to do it … but you feel obligated.”
He now spends most of his time at work, and hopes to eventually fall out of the gang life.
“It’s my block fighting your block,” he said. “We’re all in the same neighborhood, the same school, fightin’ each other. It makes no sense.”
Crips founder Tookie Williams. He supported peace efforts that sprung out of the L.A. uprising of 1992.
Members of opposing gangs pose for a picture with the peace treaty they signed under the guidance of the Nation of Islam.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1457.shtml
Newark gangs sign treaty to end hostility, agree to Bring the Peace
NEWARK (FinalCall.com) – The fatal shooting of an innocent bystander last April prompted the community here to band together and send a message that the violence that has besieged the city had to end. During a vigil in honor of Cheryl Green, a group of residents and community organizations said they hoped the message would affect someone enough that it would produce some serious changes. Apparently, it did.
On the heels of their historic May 22 ceasefire, gangs here stood before about 150 residents of the Baxter Terrace Houses, Newark Councilman Charles Bell and tried to live up to the principle of their agreement by asking for forgiveness and pledging to clean up the community.
“I apologize about any situation that happened because of something we started,” said Face. The 33-year-old Crips member said he was concerned about innocent bystanders who are being killed because of gang-related warfare.
Promoting Saving Our Selves Inc., an organization he started in April with fellow Crips member, Blaze, Ali of the Bloods and Byron “Boogie” Kelley, he said it was a gang prevention and intervention organization for at-risk youngsters. “A lot of people feel we’re content with what’s going on,” he said, but Face says he’s determined to change that perception.
Face realizes that it will take a lot more than words to change people’s perception about gangs and, for the moment at least, it appears that some are giving them the opportunity to do just that.
One person willing to lend his time and talents to the efforts of S.O.S, Inc. is Councilman Bell. After meeting with both sides in April, the councilman said he thought the gangs were headed in the right direction and vowed to do what he could to help them keep the peace. He urged the residents of the housing development to give the gangs their support because “no one else is willing to step up and pledge to do what they’re doing.”
With the conviction that the young men are sincere in their call for peace, but need alternatives to what they’re doing, Mr. Bell has worked to help some gang members secure jobs for the first time in their lives.
“We need to give these young men a chance,” he said. There is a $5 billion construction program in Newark that needs to be utilized that can help the gang members learn trades and work their way up if they want.” With the support of the mayor’s office, the city council and various community leaders, the councilman believes the gangs will be very successful in whatever they do.
It is the access to resources like these that is a key component to having any truce stick, says long-time gang activist Rodney Daley.
“The science of what is really going on gets covered over,” he said. Mr. Daley, who has worked for over 20 years with gangs and runs a rehabilitation and prevention program for Boston youngsters, contends that there is a very sinister and dangerous dynamic that is involved with truces of this magnitude. As he explains it, the Newark gangs must now be careful of outside influences that may threaten the peace process. Gangs, according to Mr. Daley, are “a way of life for some people.”
Whenever the culture is threatened, there will be forces that will try to maintain the status quo. To diminish the effects of any possible retribution from other gangs, Mr. Daley says communication is of the utmost importance.
Those involved in formulating the Newark truce says the lines of communication have always been wide open since the first attempts at a truce were made in 2002.
“The truce will be maintained by strengthening relationships with different leaders throughout the city and utilizing the agreement and different mediators,” said David Muhammad. Newark Deputy Mayor Ras Baraka and Mr. Muhammad went as far as to go to Los Angeles to study a prevention program run by former Crips member Aqeela Sherrills. They returned to Newark and later brought Mr. Sherrills and Doc, another Crips, in an attempt to formulate a plan for a treaty here. A member of the Bloods was supposed to also make the trip but missed his flight. Although their plans didn’t work at the time, Mr. Baraka and Mr. Muhammad continued to work on a plan to get the gangs together by employing various organizations and holding different events, including a basketball game last summer.
Finally, in March, the two gangs decided to meet to iron out differences. While meetings were taking place, Ms. Green was killed when someone fired at the Crips, missed and struck her. The gangs said that was the point when they had enough.
News of the truce has reached as far as Los Angeles and plans are being developed now for some of the gang members instrumental in the truce to visit the founder of the Crips, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, who now is awaiting execution on death row.
Since signing the truce, S.O.S, Inc. has received much unexpected attention. Some churches have requested the young men to speak to their congregations. After witnessing the ceasefire agreement, the superintendent of Newark Public Schools, Marion Bolden, completely revamped a “Keeping the Summer Safe” program slated for June at the Newark Symphony Hall and invited only members of S.O.S., Inc. to speak to ministers, politicians and businesspersons who have access to badly needed resources.
To Blaze, the recognition is the kind he is now welcoming. “Not a lot of people can relate to what we’re going through,” he said. “We have something to offer, so I’m glad we’re getting recognized, because we’re trying to incorporate what we know.”
But there is another kind of recognition that Blaze and other gang members are receiving that they don’t welcome. According to Blaze, a day prior to the tenants’ meeting he was arrested for two outstanding parking tickets, but was subsequently questioned by the police department’s gang unit about why tensions did not exist between himself and a gang member from another group.
Asked if he thought his arrest and interrogation had any connection to the ceasefire, he said, “Of course it does. They want me to step to this other brother, but I’m not going there.”
Another gang member who identified himself only as Kister, said he received a police summons the morning of the tenants’ meeting, claiming that his car was used during a robbery at the time the gangs met to sign the ceasefire. “Why do I need to rob somebody?” he asked. The Blood member is happy to be alive after returning home from serving time in prison. Though he says he has tried to stay free from trouble, it has found him. He wore the scars of a recent skull surgery after being shot twice at point-blank range. One bullet struck him in the head and the other is still lodged in his arm. Kister believes the conflict was started by someone trying to get the two gangs to start a war, but he was able to talk to the Crips and discovered that they were not involved in the conflict.
At Final Call presstime, the police had not returned any calls for comment.
Also in development are plans to allow S.O.S. to visit the new $410 million Newark correctional facility, where both gangs are housed in the same unit. After two days of meetings with the Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenco, an agreement was reached to have Mr. Baraka tour the facility and develop a strategy to separate the two groups. Though designed for integration, the recent housing arrangements have proven to be problematic at best, resulting in a Mother’s Day brawl that injured five officers and left one gang member with a punctured lung.
Mr. Kelley says the separation of the gangs behind prison walls is imperative to give peace a chance. He would like his new organization to be allowed to go into the jail once or twice a month to help iron out differences among the inmates.
Still, some are skeptical about the truce and the willingness of the gangs to have any long-term agreement.
“The test of this will be when the first crisis happens,” said Carl R.A. Wright of Clarence Williams Funeral Home in Irvington, New Jersey. Mr. Wright, a member of the Garden State Funeral Directors Association and District Governor of the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, says he is willing to do his part to help the young men become productive but, at a certain point he says, they have to take responsibility for their own actions.
“If they don’t want to do that, I don’t have any use for you,” he said. “Half of my clientele is under 40. I’m not happy about that.”
Leonard Smith has seen the effects of gang violence firsthand. Having worked for 37 years in the funeral business as a mortuary assistant, he is tired of senseless killings he says has evolved from drug wars to territorial killings to gangs.
According to Mr. Smith, if there are 100 gang-related deaths this year, he will see 75 of them. He says he hopes the truce will hold, but time will determine that. “It’s devastating to be here and to see people in here on a constant basis because of gang and retaliatory things.”
For now, those living in Baxter Terrace say they will do what they can to support the gangs and S.O.S. to maintain peace. The group’s members say Baxter Terrace is just the beginning. Eventually, they want to go to other housing developments and clean them up. They say after years of destroying their environment, the onus is on them to rebuild their community. “Personally, I don’t condone calling the police,” Blaze told the audience. “We need to govern our own.”
Mr. Kelly agreed, adding that the gangs, along with the community ,must “work together to change the stereotypes about low-income housing and the elements in them.” He also called for a “No shooting summer in Baxter Terrace.” Judging from the cheers the remark received, the audience welcomed the idea.
Following the meeting, a young mother spoke for many as she expressed concern for her 3-year-old son because of the attraction some gangs have on young boys. “I’m with them. I’m around them, so I know,” said Sha-mar Smith. She went on to say that she accepted their apology and applauded their desire to do something positive. “I think that’s good. It’s something that’s going to change here,” she said.
Other residents, like Carole Spence, see a broader picture. Ms. Spence, who is now 48, says she can count on one hand the number of her two children’s friends who made it out of the housing development in the 29 years that she has lived here. Although her son is now a corrections officer and her daughter recently graduated from medical school, her children were two of “the lucky ones,” she says. A lot more has to be done by both the parents of these children and the community. “If they can come together and make peace within Newark, that will help out a lot,” she said. “At least, they’re trying to accomplish something within the community and then who knows—that might go on to another state and another state and another state. This might be the beginning of something here.”
Although a lot of their plans are still in development, gang members say their focus is not solely on young boys who are at-risk for joining gangs. When someone asked about help for young girls and women who might be attracted to gang members, Face explained that the group was in the rudimentary stages of asking women of Muhammad’s Mosque No. 25 to teach young girls and women how to be women and how to regain their femininity.
The Newark gangs say the truce is holding, and since signing the ceasefire they have even found time to fraternize with each other. They’ve even begun to refer to each other as brothers. Blaze is simply happy to turn over the proverbial new leaf and sees it as a “pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.”
Face and Mr. Kelly credit the truce in part to the Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the respect the gang members have for the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Face goes a step further and said he would like to have the spiritual leader of the Nation of Islam visit Newark and talk to both sides. “The brothers know he can handle a lot of the brothers and make them feel like they’re something special,” he said.
Four Years After Watts Truce –
Cease Fires Spread But No Silver Bullet for Gang Bangers’ Problems
By Beatriz Johnston Hernandez
Date: 04-09-96The gang truce movement that grew out of the Los Angeles riots of April 1991 has spread to some 40-50 urban regions across America. While many have curbed gang killing, truce organizers have found it difficult to create positive alternatives to replace gang life. PNS associate editor Beatriz Johnston Hernandez is a West Coast staff writer for Processo and a contributor to the Oakland-based bi-monthly Third Force.
LOS ANGELES — In the midst of the Los Angeles riots, three gangs hammered out the Watts truce. Four years after its April signing, the cease-fire shows the potential and the difficulty of peace in the ghetto.
Since then, between 40 to 50 cease fires involving several thousand young people are holding in cities previously known for endless bloodletting — like South Central Los Angeles, East Los Angeles County, Long Beach and Venice, San Antonio, Chicago. Drive-by shootings are significantly down in West Los Angeles and Long Beach, home to two of southern California’s cross-ethnic truces. The “vast majority of people in the five major (black) projects of Los Angeles are participating in some form with the gang truce,” says former Black Panther Michael Zinzun, director of the Community in Support of the Gang Truce (CSGT), with the result that carnage has dropped by some 20 percent in South Central Los Angeles.
But truce organizers have found that curbing the killings — while a necessary first step — is often easier than creating something positive in its place. In those neighborhoods where gang violence co-mingled with drug dealing and extortion, like Long Beach, the dealing and extortion goes on.
“Kids deal drugs so they can feed their kids and pay the rent. Unless we give them viable alternatives, they’re going to continue to sell drugs,” says Rev. Greg Boyle, director of Jobs for the Future, a Catholic non-profit organization that sits in the middle of this city’s most balkanized area, East Los Angeles.
Truce organizers admit the only real alternative to gang violence will come with a massive infusion of economic development programs, therapy, job training and a political voice. And despite the publicity around truces, the government is in no mood for peace-making strategies. In late March, president Bill Clinton declared a one-strike edict against drug-dealing tenants in public housing. This year, even Los Angeles is withdrawing all the monies it devotes to teen summer jobs.
Police in Chicago argue gang truces there are mere fronts for drug dealing. Gang crime officers in East Los Angeles County are convinced intra-community truces have resulted in previously rival gangs uniting into larger gangs that now face off bigger rivals.
And some truces simply haven’t held. Ray Balberon of San Francisco-based Real Alternative Project isn’t surprised. “Calling for a truce without a backup program is difficult,” he says. “Do we have resources to deliver? Employment, schools?”
Gang mediator Jim Hernandez, a veteran of gang banging who now works with the Concord, Calif., police gang task force, sees gangs becoming increasingly atomized. He says the “peewees” who are still invested in making a name for themselves “don’t want to take orders from anybody,” including gang elders, who are more inclined toward peace-making.
Although the odds are stacked against gang cease-fires, peace makers are convinced the truces that are working offer lessons in how to break the lethal cycle of attack and revenge. Most came about through community intervention that invariably involves elders and spiritual leaders.
Twilight Bey, a former Blood, recalls the countless Wednesdays at football star Jim Brown’s house, one of the two sites of the peace talks that led to the Watts truce. The other was a Muslim temple in South Central Los Angeles. “Sometimes there was so much metal that if you melted it down it would become a tanker. Eventually there was no need to bring metal to the house.”
The breakthrough, Bey recalls, came when participants found a common ground of humanity. “We realized … the only way to stop the pain is to stop hurting each other … Some of us have found some of our closest friends to be people from the other side.”
Gitu Sadicki, who works with a violence-prevention program in Los Angeles, remembers the meetings at the temple. “Many reminisced about going to school together when they were little, about the invisible borders that rose up between them … They began to remember the things they did as youngsters. The Imam allowed them to work things out for themselves, but when things got sticky, he’d step in and pray … ”
Truce activists in the Latino community describe similar methods to bring gang adversaries together. Daniel “Nane” Alejandro, who directs Barrios Unidos in Santa Cruz, Calif., attributes some of the truce holding power to new spiritual bonds among Chicanos who have turned to native American practices, like the sweat lodge.
The importance of the sweat, Alejandro says, is all about what happens when people are around the circle: “You connect to people who’ve been in the same situation, and so you reconnect with yourself. That’s where you get that healing, by connecting to something good within you, in the realization that we’re not alone.”
Some truce activists hope to channel the energies that once kept gangs together into political organizing. Michael Zinzun is part of a core group calling on “10,000″ African American and Chicano men and women to rally in Los Angeles on April 27. The event is planned as a celebration of the truce’s anniversary and to form popular committees around electoral politics, union organizing, police brutality and economic development.
But the most enduring successes of gang peace are most evident on the individual level. Bey is now a community consultant whose pager beeps often. He does presentations at schools to explain Maer-I-Can, the curriculum created by Jim Brown to teach self-esteem and self determination. He wants to run for elective office. “Instead of banging on a negative note, I’ve found other ways of getting my kicks.”
