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The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of an American Gang
In gangster lore, the Almighty Black P Stone Nation stands out among the most notorious street gangs. But how did teens from a poverty–stricken Chicago neighborhood build a powerful organization that united 21 individual gangs into a virtual nation?
Natalie Y. Moore and Lance Williams answer this and other questions in a provocative tale that features a colorful cast of characters from white do-gooders, black nationalists, and community organizers to overzealous law enforcement. The U.S. government funded the Nation. Louis Farrakahn hired the gang-renamed the El Rukns in a tribute to Islam-as his Angels of Death. Fifteen years before 9/11, the government convicted the gang of plotting terrorist acts with Libyan leader Mu’ammar Gadhafi; currently, founding member Jeff Fort is serving a triple life sentence.
An exciting story about the evolution of a gang, the book is an exposé of how minority crime is targeted as well as a timely look at urban violence
Natalie Y. Moore and Lance Williams answer this and other questions in a provocative tale that features a colorful cast of characters from white do-gooders, black nationalists, and community organizers to overzealous law enforcement. The U.S. government funded the Nation. Louis Farrakahn hired the gang-renamed the El Rukns in a tribute to Islam-as his Angels of Death. Fifteen years before 9/11, the government convicted the gang of plotting terrorist acts with Libyan leader Mu’ammar Gadhafi; currently, founding member Jeff Fort is serving a triple life sentence.
An exciting story about the evolution of a gang, the book is an exposé of how minority crime is targeted as well as a timely look at urban violence
309 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
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December 9, 2013
An exceedingly well-researched, heartfelt, and even-handed book that was nonetheless a massive chore to read. I wish I could say otherwise, but this was a just-the-facts-ma'am chronology for the benefit of future scholars and researchers. It managed to hit all of the important points in the group's existence without ever giving one the day-to-day experience of being a Stone. It almost felt like certain aspects of the story had been embargoed pending final edit from one or more primary players in the story (Jeff Fort, for example), as there was an evasiveness about whether or not the Stones were a social group, a religious group, or a street gang that made money through drugs and prostitution. If this tone had survived to the very end, I would understand, but once Jeff Fort is incarcerated, details of the succeeding groups (especially the fractious 8-Tray Stones in the '90s and '00s) go into the drugs, gunplay, mayhem that is absent from even the most heated areas of the group's existence. Or maybe I'm just seeing things that aren't there.
October 4, 2024
By the 1990s, hip hop had grown to be one of the most prominent musical genres, if not the MOST prominent genre in America. Possibly it became the most prominent musical style in the world. I’ve never been to a country where you didn’t hear it playing in stores, on the radio, in restaurants, or blasting out of car windows. This is true even in Luxembourg which I would consider to be the least hip hop-like place I’ve ever been. A lot of journalistic writing has been dedicated to uncovering the roots of hip hop in the likes of James Brown, The Last Poets, and various other obscure funk, jazz, and soul bands from the 1960s and 1970s. I’ve encountered less journalism or historical studies that have examined the social origins and influences that fed into later hip hop culture. There is one group of African-Americans who may not have directly influenced the genre in the beginning, but they certainly embodied a lot of the themes that had become prominent in the music by the 1990s. Natalie Y. Moore and Lance Williams’ The Almighty Black P Stone Nation does not examine this cultural connection, but it does lay a groundwork for a cultural historian to see how the hip hop movement and some of what it stands for did not emerge out of a void.
This history begins in the south side of Chicago with its heavy concentration of African-American people, many of which were there because they or their ancestors migrated from the South to escape the racism and poverty, to the booming city of Chicago where the steel industry and others needed manual, unskilled laborers. That is where two young teenagers, Jeff Fort and Eugene “Bull” Hairston dropped out of school at a young age and formed a gang called the Blackstone Rangers. Part of their motivation was strength in numbers when facing off against their rivals, the Disciples, who preyed on kids from other neighborhoods who had to pass through their turf to get to school. The Blackstone Rangers soon got involved in all the crime that gang membership entailed including drug dealing, prostitution, gambling, extortion, protection rackets, and street violence. But the Rangers took a slightly different turn from the Disciples and other gangs.
Fort and Hairston established a strange alliance when the ministers at a Presbyterian church took them under their wing and allowed the teenagers to use their property as headquarters. It was a symbiotic relationship since the church received federal aid money for a job creation program because they worked directly with troubled teenagers who had some social capital in their neighborhood. The Blackstone Rangers also benefited because they had a legitimate looking place to go, keeping themselves off the streets and out of the eyes of the police. They also participated in the job creation program, directing unemployed youth towards occupations that benefited them and their families. But the Rangers also stole money from the church and some critics even say the ministers allowed this to happen in order to stay on the good side of the gang. Whatever the case may be, the Blackstone Rangers grew in stature and reputation all over Chicago. They chartered other gangs from all over the city, renamed the organization the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, and Fort and Hairston set up a ruling council of twenty one leaders to oversee the whole corporation. They got even bigger when they began doing business with La Cosa Nostra. When Bull Hairston got sent up the river for a very long paid vacation in the penitentiary, Fort took over the leadership position and ruled the Nation until he died. Even when he himself got sent to prison, he commanded the gang from behind bars.
But something else happened to Jeff Fort while he did his time. Like so many African-American people who end up in jail, he found religion and like so many of those others, the religion he found was Islam. Fort had joined up with Noble Drew Ali’s cult the Moorish Science Temple and when released, he announced that he was changing the Black P Stone Nation into an unorthodox Muslim sect he called El Rukn based on Noble Drew Ali’s teachings. This temple was run out of a building called The Fort. But El Rukn was not entirely pure and holy; while there was an element of sincerity in Fort’s newly designed religion, it was also used as a cover for the same old gangbanging that the Black P Stone Nation had been involved in all along. El Rukn also began embracing militant Black Nationalism and started stockpiling heavy artillery including machine guns and explosives. One member even got busted in a sting operation when buying a rocket launcher from undercover FBI agents. The feds also wiretapped El Rukn when they sent a delegation to Libya to meet with Moammar Gaddafi.
The writers of this book are not upfront about how they feel in regards to this gang. They point out some of the positive things they were responsible for like helping teenagers find jobs, working with Martin Luther King when he visited Chicago, embracing Black Power, embracing Islam as a means of community building, running youth groups through El Rukn, and sometimes preventing inter-gang violence rather than promoting it. Yet they also point out how their gangster stance was detrimental to the African-American community. By selling heroin and crack on inner city street corners, by running prostitution rings that pimped out young black girls, and extorting money from Black business owners they were hypocritically harming the community they claimed to be supporting. The strange irony is that Jeff Fort and his followers couldn’t see the schizophrenic nature of what they were doing and in fact appeared to genuinely believe in all its contradictory facets both good and evil. The authors do point out the gang’s strange ideological orientation to society, but they are also strangely dismissive of their later stances regarding revolutionary violence. They write about their potential for terrorist activities as if it is just an eccentricity, downplaying it as a threat. Their unwillingness to thoroughly engage with the potential for destruction that the Black P Stone Nation had in their collection of weaponry is a weakness in the writing.
The other huge flaw in this book is the writing itself. The subject matter is examined from a distance without any insiders’ points of view. It reads like a listing of events as if the gang was never really made up of individual people. It is the type of bird’s eye view prose you get when reading a 20th century author’s accounts of ancient Roman history. You just can’t see the world through the eyes of the people being written about. The writing is also stiff and stilted, lacking in flow due to there being too many short sentences that make it an uphill battle to read. This book is a good example of how amateurish writing can make a fascinating subject matter look bland and uninspired.
The Almighty Black P Stone Nation is not a great piece of writing, but it does serve as a good introduction to this contradictory and influential African-American social organization. It covers the territories of gang culture, street culture, youth culture, prison, social conditions, political ideology, revolution, outlawry, Black theology and religion, inner city violence, and it even touches on fashion. All these themes show up in rap lyrics and the Black P Stone Nation had an unusual way of bringing all these elements together as if the whole gang where the atom that split and exploded into the subculture we now know as hip hop. All of this happened under the tutelage of the visionary Jeff Fort. But his vision was distorted and he might have been just a little more crazy than not. He certainly could see farther than he could reach. This book is marred by too much reporting and not enough analysis. That analysis will hopefully come later because there is a lot to unpack here. The ability the Black P Stone Nation has for holding together over such a long period of time despite all its contortions and contradictions may say something important about the nature of human societies. Those secret forces may be malignant or they may be benign, but we won’t know what they are until this subject matter gets taken up by a more analytical scholar.
This history begins in the south side of Chicago with its heavy concentration of African-American people, many of which were there because they or their ancestors migrated from the South to escape the racism and poverty, to the booming city of Chicago where the steel industry and others needed manual, unskilled laborers. That is where two young teenagers, Jeff Fort and Eugene “Bull” Hairston dropped out of school at a young age and formed a gang called the Blackstone Rangers. Part of their motivation was strength in numbers when facing off against their rivals, the Disciples, who preyed on kids from other neighborhoods who had to pass through their turf to get to school. The Blackstone Rangers soon got involved in all the crime that gang membership entailed including drug dealing, prostitution, gambling, extortion, protection rackets, and street violence. But the Rangers took a slightly different turn from the Disciples and other gangs.
Fort and Hairston established a strange alliance when the ministers at a Presbyterian church took them under their wing and allowed the teenagers to use their property as headquarters. It was a symbiotic relationship since the church received federal aid money for a job creation program because they worked directly with troubled teenagers who had some social capital in their neighborhood. The Blackstone Rangers also benefited because they had a legitimate looking place to go, keeping themselves off the streets and out of the eyes of the police. They also participated in the job creation program, directing unemployed youth towards occupations that benefited them and their families. But the Rangers also stole money from the church and some critics even say the ministers allowed this to happen in order to stay on the good side of the gang. Whatever the case may be, the Blackstone Rangers grew in stature and reputation all over Chicago. They chartered other gangs from all over the city, renamed the organization the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, and Fort and Hairston set up a ruling council of twenty one leaders to oversee the whole corporation. They got even bigger when they began doing business with La Cosa Nostra. When Bull Hairston got sent up the river for a very long paid vacation in the penitentiary, Fort took over the leadership position and ruled the Nation until he died. Even when he himself got sent to prison, he commanded the gang from behind bars.
But something else happened to Jeff Fort while he did his time. Like so many African-American people who end up in jail, he found religion and like so many of those others, the religion he found was Islam. Fort had joined up with Noble Drew Ali’s cult the Moorish Science Temple and when released, he announced that he was changing the Black P Stone Nation into an unorthodox Muslim sect he called El Rukn based on Noble Drew Ali’s teachings. This temple was run out of a building called The Fort. But El Rukn was not entirely pure and holy; while there was an element of sincerity in Fort’s newly designed religion, it was also used as a cover for the same old gangbanging that the Black P Stone Nation had been involved in all along. El Rukn also began embracing militant Black Nationalism and started stockpiling heavy artillery including machine guns and explosives. One member even got busted in a sting operation when buying a rocket launcher from undercover FBI agents. The feds also wiretapped El Rukn when they sent a delegation to Libya to meet with Moammar Gaddafi.
The writers of this book are not upfront about how they feel in regards to this gang. They point out some of the positive things they were responsible for like helping teenagers find jobs, working with Martin Luther King when he visited Chicago, embracing Black Power, embracing Islam as a means of community building, running youth groups through El Rukn, and sometimes preventing inter-gang violence rather than promoting it. Yet they also point out how their gangster stance was detrimental to the African-American community. By selling heroin and crack on inner city street corners, by running prostitution rings that pimped out young black girls, and extorting money from Black business owners they were hypocritically harming the community they claimed to be supporting. The strange irony is that Jeff Fort and his followers couldn’t see the schizophrenic nature of what they were doing and in fact appeared to genuinely believe in all its contradictory facets both good and evil. The authors do point out the gang’s strange ideological orientation to society, but they are also strangely dismissive of their later stances regarding revolutionary violence. They write about their potential for terrorist activities as if it is just an eccentricity, downplaying it as a threat. Their unwillingness to thoroughly engage with the potential for destruction that the Black P Stone Nation had in their collection of weaponry is a weakness in the writing.
The other huge flaw in this book is the writing itself. The subject matter is examined from a distance without any insiders’ points of view. It reads like a listing of events as if the gang was never really made up of individual people. It is the type of bird’s eye view prose you get when reading a 20th century author’s accounts of ancient Roman history. You just can’t see the world through the eyes of the people being written about. The writing is also stiff and stilted, lacking in flow due to there being too many short sentences that make it an uphill battle to read. This book is a good example of how amateurish writing can make a fascinating subject matter look bland and uninspired.
The Almighty Black P Stone Nation is not a great piece of writing, but it does serve as a good introduction to this contradictory and influential African-American social organization. It covers the territories of gang culture, street culture, youth culture, prison, social conditions, political ideology, revolution, outlawry, Black theology and religion, inner city violence, and it even touches on fashion. All these themes show up in rap lyrics and the Black P Stone Nation had an unusual way of bringing all these elements together as if the whole gang where the atom that split and exploded into the subculture we now know as hip hop. All of this happened under the tutelage of the visionary Jeff Fort. But his vision was distorted and he might have been just a little more crazy than not. He certainly could see farther than he could reach. This book is marred by too much reporting and not enough analysis. That analysis will hopefully come later because there is a lot to unpack here. The ability the Black P Stone Nation has for holding together over such a long period of time despite all its contortions and contradictions may say something important about the nature of human societies. Those secret forces may be malignant or they may be benign, but we won’t know what they are until this subject matter gets taken up by a more analytical scholar.
January 26, 2020
Fascinating a book about "The People" written by one of those influenced by "The Folk". The Black P Stone Nation(BPSN) and the variants, spin-offs, and descendants are somewhat discussed and researched in this work. There are serious flaws and omissions along with barely adequate research.
The People became a self applied inside moniker of the BPSN/El Rukn membership and hierarchy. The Folk were the arch enemy, i.e. another gang. Co-author Williams had the background of his father being a member of a Chicago gang, one that wasn't the BPSN. They too were in the same 'game' as the rest of these groups/gangs during the 60's and really kind of invented the operation that got Federal money for community development. There were do-gooders, naive liberals(and several NOT so naive ones too) and more than a few opportunists that all were financially benefiting at some level. "The Folk" probably were the innovators of the community action grants for the Chicago community. Not well or clearly represented in this work.
BPSN and the Blackstone Rangers had a bit more history in parallel early on (there have been a number of photo archives that demonstrate this and records at the University of Chicago from some campus occupation during the 1960's) than this work would generally convey to the reader. The University of Chicago had a more than slightly malignant role (think of Columbia University in New York and Morningside(sp?) park) than is even hinted at in this telling. However by the time of the this work the University was offering services in the neighborhood that no one else offered. That included the City and other public entities. Ergo the outreach for Federal funds. But they pissed off Hizzoner.(Hizzoner- Richard J. Daley mayor of Chicago)
The Blackstone Rangers (referred to as generally those associated with the Main 21 ) had a lot of community activity that was underplayed and happened in parallel to the rise of Jeff Fort and "Bull" Hairston. Money (the Federal grants), publicity, and politics making strange bedfellows led to a very different organization that evolved into the BPSN and finally El Rukn Nation.
The characterization of the interaction between the Nation of Islam (and their paramilitary force the FOI-Fruits of Islam) and the followers of Fort/Chief Malik are all but missing in this work. A deliberate or self serving (for someone) account of Louis Farrakhan and the NOI is simply misleading. Farrakhan was not as unaware of the role of gangs in Chicago as is portrayed. NOI was a Chicago based organization at the point LF was brought in as the National Minister (and therefor spokesman and public face) by the Muhammad family. LF would rise to a new level of prominence and there was a LOT of interaction between the NOI and the El Rukn organizations. Many of the sources for this book document this thoroughly. The bullet holes in buildings across the Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Marquette Park, Kenwood, Jackson Park, etal. were also pretty good indications that "someone was doing something".
The minimal information offered of the El Rukn trials is of particular concern in a work on this topic. The daily news coverage of this was phenomenal and gets rather short shrift in the synopsis included. An apology of sorts is proffered regarding exactly what the El Rukn nation really constituted. Questions abound as a result after reading of this that could include that 'religious' persecution was at play. Don't be fooled or buy a woof ticket after this story. This was a war. Racism played a very large role. There were gangs involved including some that were public officials. People shot Folk and vice versa to settle minor disagreements.
At best there is an interesting start with this work about a quarter of a century or more of a part of urban life in an area of Chicago, Illinois that need a lot more research and documentation beyond bits a pieces from a variety of sources. It may be too late as many of the participants are long dead or have become unavailable. Three or more books could come from this work alone if they were more coherently constructed and were divorced from any agenda.
The People became a self applied inside moniker of the BPSN/El Rukn membership and hierarchy. The Folk were the arch enemy, i.e. another gang. Co-author Williams had the background of his father being a member of a Chicago gang, one that wasn't the BPSN. They too were in the same 'game' as the rest of these groups/gangs during the 60's and really kind of invented the operation that got Federal money for community development. There were do-gooders, naive liberals(and several NOT so naive ones too) and more than a few opportunists that all were financially benefiting at some level. "The Folk" probably were the innovators of the community action grants for the Chicago community. Not well or clearly represented in this work.
BPSN and the Blackstone Rangers had a bit more history in parallel early on (there have been a number of photo archives that demonstrate this and records at the University of Chicago from some campus occupation during the 1960's) than this work would generally convey to the reader. The University of Chicago had a more than slightly malignant role (think of Columbia University in New York and Morningside(sp?) park) than is even hinted at in this telling. However by the time of the this work the University was offering services in the neighborhood that no one else offered. That included the City and other public entities. Ergo the outreach for Federal funds. But they pissed off Hizzoner.(Hizzoner- Richard J. Daley mayor of Chicago)
The Blackstone Rangers (referred to as generally those associated with the Main 21 ) had a lot of community activity that was underplayed and happened in parallel to the rise of Jeff Fort and "Bull" Hairston. Money (the Federal grants), publicity, and politics making strange bedfellows led to a very different organization that evolved into the BPSN and finally El Rukn Nation.
The characterization of the interaction between the Nation of Islam (and their paramilitary force the FOI-Fruits of Islam) and the followers of Fort/Chief Malik are all but missing in this work. A deliberate or self serving (for someone) account of Louis Farrakhan and the NOI is simply misleading. Farrakhan was not as unaware of the role of gangs in Chicago as is portrayed. NOI was a Chicago based organization at the point LF was brought in as the National Minister (and therefor spokesman and public face) by the Muhammad family. LF would rise to a new level of prominence and there was a LOT of interaction between the NOI and the El Rukn organizations. Many of the sources for this book document this thoroughly. The bullet holes in buildings across the Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Marquette Park, Kenwood, Jackson Park, etal. were also pretty good indications that "someone was doing something".
The minimal information offered of the El Rukn trials is of particular concern in a work on this topic. The daily news coverage of this was phenomenal and gets rather short shrift in the synopsis included. An apology of sorts is proffered regarding exactly what the El Rukn nation really constituted. Questions abound as a result after reading of this that could include that 'religious' persecution was at play. Don't be fooled or buy a woof ticket after this story. This was a war. Racism played a very large role. There were gangs involved including some that were public officials. People shot Folk and vice versa to settle minor disagreements.
At best there is an interesting start with this work about a quarter of a century or more of a part of urban life in an area of Chicago, Illinois that need a lot more research and documentation beyond bits a pieces from a variety of sources. It may be too late as many of the participants are long dead or have become unavailable. Three or more books could come from this work alone if they were more coherently constructed and were divorced from any agenda.
September 4, 2018
Fascinating story, essential Chicago history. Jeff Fort is so ambiguous. A murderous thug, and a charismatic leader who convinced so many of his good intentions. I never knew Chicago gangs were grant writers until I read this book.
The final trial (alleging conspiracy with Qaddafi) of Fort seems very unfair. Essentially an underling was entrapped, and that sent Fort to jail for 90 years or something. I don't doubt that he deserved to go to jail for murder and drug dealing, but it seems he had nothing to do with Qaddafi.
The story-telling is a little disorganized, and veers into too much detail at points.
But again: essential Chicago history. Many cameos. For instance did you know Bobby Rush was a black panther in his youth? Also, the high murder rate in this city has unfortunately been a fact for many, many years.
Strongly recommend if you care about Chicago or African-American history or American history from 1960-1980s and the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. Only give it 3 stars because the writing is uneven.
The final trial (alleging conspiracy with Qaddafi) of Fort seems very unfair. Essentially an underling was entrapped, and that sent Fort to jail for 90 years or something. I don't doubt that he deserved to go to jail for murder and drug dealing, but it seems he had nothing to do with Qaddafi.
The story-telling is a little disorganized, and veers into too much detail at points.
But again: essential Chicago history. Many cameos. For instance did you know Bobby Rush was a black panther in his youth? Also, the high murder rate in this city has unfortunately been a fact for many, many years.
Strongly recommend if you care about Chicago or African-American history or American history from 1960-1980s and the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. Only give it 3 stars because the writing is uneven.
November 14, 2019
What the he'll does that mean?
So at the beginning of the book the authors write, "Public assistance policies didn't encourage men to live in public housing and therefore mothers ended up raising their children solo". Was there a policy that discouraged men from living in households in which they fathered children? This is one of the most patently stupid things I've ever read. I also believe the statement to be false and an attempt to rationalize the promulgate the idea of unwed motherhood and sex outside of marriage as being more the result government than of personal responsibility and morality. It comes off as legitimizing having children out of wedlock. So crowding small public housing apartment with fatherless children is the result of government Public assistance policies, not the free wheeling by products of irresponsible adults screwing outside of marriage. I guess the most appropriate response to this passage in the book is Eff You. It wasn't us that created this population, it was you. How typical! More BE that will go unchalle.
So at the beginning of the book the authors write, "Public assistance policies didn't encourage men to live in public housing and therefore mothers ended up raising their children solo". Was there a policy that discouraged men from living in households in which they fathered children? This is one of the most patently stupid things I've ever read. I also believe the statement to be false and an attempt to rationalize the promulgate the idea of unwed motherhood and sex outside of marriage as being more the result government than of personal responsibility and morality. It comes off as legitimizing having children out of wedlock. So crowding small public housing apartment with fatherless children is the result of government Public assistance policies, not the free wheeling by products of irresponsible adults screwing outside of marriage. I guess the most appropriate response to this passage in the book is Eff You. It wasn't us that created this population, it was you. How typical! More BE that will go unchalle.
February 12, 2020
Natalie Moore, in 'South Side' and her ongoing journalism is one of the most essential chroniclers of Chicago life and history, and the ongoing legacy of white supremacist policies. I was happy to learn this history, and its an accessible, easy read, that details much of this interesting history without pathologizing the participants. The narrative structure is choppy, with some facts repeated endlessly, and parts of the timeline left out; and I was confused by the inclusion of Lance Williams, who's both a character and a co-author.
October 18, 2021
Worth reading for a granular and practical view into the operation of a gang. I was very interested in some of the claims that the authors made about police practices and how they sometimes backfired to exacerbate violence, but those pieces weren't always clearly argued--e.g., the authors say that police and feds intervened to stop the Nation of Islam from brokering truces between Chicago gangs, but say little about how far the truce negotiations got or how serious they were, or what the city or federal government might actually have known about them.
August 7, 2020
A factual account of the Black P Stones in Woodlawn
I grew up in Woodlawn during the rise of the Blackstone Rangers and I found the book to coincide with my recollections of the time period. What I did question is the statements made by Rev. Brazier who has been deceased for quite some time. It's seems that some reflections might have actually come from his son who is also a minister.
I grew up in Woodlawn during the rise of the Blackstone Rangers and I found the book to coincide with my recollections of the time period. What I did question is the statements made by Rev. Brazier who has been deceased for quite some time. It's seems that some reflections might have actually come from his son who is also a minister.
May 6, 2017
1.5 stars.
This book—eleven chapters, 88,000 words—badly needs editing. It's a mishmash of reporting, hortatory & hagiography. I almost gave up reading it midway, but I'm glad I didn't. The final chapter is good, informative. In fact, my notes indicate that I liked the Introduction and chapters 1 and 11.
This book—eleven chapters, 88,000 words—badly needs editing. It's a mishmash of reporting, hortatory & hagiography. I almost gave up reading it midway, but I'm glad I didn't. The final chapter is good, informative. In fact, my notes indicate that I liked the Introduction and chapters 1 and 11.
August 5, 2019
"Against the backdrop of these neighborhood political battles and victories, the Blackstone Rangers began to form. Von Hoffman said Alinsky had a dictum, which was to never organize male adolescents, irrespective of race, because their nature is to be fascists." (17)
May 13, 2019
Very well researched collaborative book by a reporter and an educator covering a raw and ruthless period in Chicago gang history and its aftermath.
October 19, 2020
Cruising for a five star but a rushed last third/quarter hurt it. Exhaustive for the 60s through the 80s, it kind of blasted through the last 20-30 years.
May 3, 2016
I learned about this book from reading "The Assassination of Fred Hampton", since they are both published by Lawrence Hill Books. The Blackstone Rangers were THE gang when I was growing up in Chicago. All I knew about them was what I heard on the news, and seeing their graffiti on buildings. "The Almighty Black P Stone Nation" does a pretty good job of describing how the Rangers got their start, with Jeff Fort and "Bull" Hairston, their transition to the Black P Stone Nation, and eventually to the El Rukns.
We get lots of interesting info. For instance, when he was growing up in Bridgeport, Mayor Daley Sr. was in a gang called the Hamburg Club. That conical hat that Jeff Fort wore was a "Fulani" hat, one worn by the Fulani people of Africa. I wish there had been more about the "coded" language the Stones used. In describing the spiritual significance of numbers to the El Rukns, we are told that
"The number four represented stability. The El Rukns would often say 'I put four on it' to emphasize that whatever they had done was solid, stable, or well done."
That's some slang that I wish had made it into the mainstream!
The tone of the book is a bit uneven; sometimes it's scholarly and factual, and other times it feels a bit preachy. For example, when we hear about Skip-O in the last chapter, we're told that he "didn't even have a car. He walked around the Tray like Jesus tending his flock." That's laying it on a bit thick, even if you think of the Stones as more of a social organization than a gang.
For the most part, though, the authors let you form your own conclusions. Were the Stones a group on par with the Panthers, devoted to the improvement of their neighborhood, or were they preying on their neighbors, selling drugs and gangbanging? Probably both.
What can't be denied is their power: the Stones and the Panthers never joined forces, but we read that "(Bobby) Rush believes a coalition would have resulted in the city's first black mayor long before Harold Washington's 1983 victory." That's a heady thought, but a terrifying one for the powers-that-be, and so Fred Hampton was killed not long after he met with Jeff Fort.
The last chapter of the book has a slightly different tone than the earlier ones, and since author Lance Williams is introduced as a character, it makes you wonder if this chapter was written by Natalie Moore. Or maybe Williams provided her with the inside track, since he worked with some of the guys in the organization. In any case, it is a good summation, bringing us into the present. Moore and Williams "put four on it" telling the story of the Black P Stone Nation.
We get lots of interesting info. For instance, when he was growing up in Bridgeport, Mayor Daley Sr. was in a gang called the Hamburg Club. That conical hat that Jeff Fort wore was a "Fulani" hat, one worn by the Fulani people of Africa. I wish there had been more about the "coded" language the Stones used. In describing the spiritual significance of numbers to the El Rukns, we are told that
"The number four represented stability. The El Rukns would often say 'I put four on it' to emphasize that whatever they had done was solid, stable, or well done."
That's some slang that I wish had made it into the mainstream!
The tone of the book is a bit uneven; sometimes it's scholarly and factual, and other times it feels a bit preachy. For example, when we hear about Skip-O in the last chapter, we're told that he "didn't even have a car. He walked around the Tray like Jesus tending his flock." That's laying it on a bit thick, even if you think of the Stones as more of a social organization than a gang.
For the most part, though, the authors let you form your own conclusions. Were the Stones a group on par with the Panthers, devoted to the improvement of their neighborhood, or were they preying on their neighbors, selling drugs and gangbanging? Probably both.
What can't be denied is their power: the Stones and the Panthers never joined forces, but we read that "(Bobby) Rush believes a coalition would have resulted in the city's first black mayor long before Harold Washington's 1983 victory." That's a heady thought, but a terrifying one for the powers-that-be, and so Fred Hampton was killed not long after he met with Jeff Fort.
The last chapter of the book has a slightly different tone than the earlier ones, and since author Lance Williams is introduced as a character, it makes you wonder if this chapter was written by Natalie Moore. Or maybe Williams provided her with the inside track, since he worked with some of the guys in the organization. In any case, it is a good summation, bringing us into the present. Moore and Williams "put four on it" telling the story of the Black P Stone Nation.
March 16, 2016
This book was almost perfect (and might be perfect for another reader). Well paced, accessible, informative, well-researched. There's some folksiness to the writing that grates at some of my training, but it doesn't at all take away from the book itself. The only part I really didn't enjoy was the sort of sanctimonious discussion by one of the authors about his recent work with this group at the very end of the book. It very much veered away from the objective story/history that was going on up until this point.
BUT overall really excellent and important part of Chicago history.
Edited also to add that while the authors seemed to try, there was very little information about what any sort of day-to-day experience was like for the young men involved in this group and shockingly almost nothing at all about any women that were involved (this could have been lack of available information, not willful neglect on the authors' parts).
BUT overall really excellent and important part of Chicago history.
Edited also to add that while the authors seemed to try, there was very little information about what any sort of day-to-day experience was like for the young men involved in this group and shockingly almost nothing at all about any women that were involved (this could have been lack of available information, not willful neglect on the authors' parts).
June 12, 2011
I heard about the El Rukns as a kid when they got arrested for working with Qhaddafi (funny how the man never seems to go away). And somewhere along the way I've heard of the Blackstone Rangers. So, I was curious.
I know nothing about gangs or the history of gangs, but this was an interesting read. The Rangers, in and of themselves, were incredibly contradictory: involved in the Civil Rights movement, becoming devout Muslims, into drugs, racketeering, and murder. You can tell the authors are fairly conflicted about the men they've written about, and, I, as a reader, could not but help share in their ambivalence.
Definitely captivating. I finished this in just a few days (between work, sleep, etc.), and I'm a notoriously slow reader.
I know nothing about gangs or the history of gangs, but this was an interesting read. The Rangers, in and of themselves, were incredibly contradictory: involved in the Civil Rights movement, becoming devout Muslims, into drugs, racketeering, and murder. You can tell the authors are fairly conflicted about the men they've written about, and, I, as a reader, could not but help share in their ambivalence.
Definitely captivating. I finished this in just a few days (between work, sleep, etc.), and I'm a notoriously slow reader.
November 16, 2016
This was well-researched and I learned a lot, but it was a very disjointed read for me. The chapters seemed choppy and dates jumped around for no reason, making it confusing. There were quite a few instances where I couldn't help but say out loud, "I know, you told us that five times already" - there was quite a bit of repetition of facts. Slang was also used in this book, mostly without definition, and although I was familiar with words and phrases, I think a lot of readers may not be.
September 6, 2011
Fascinating read on the late 20th century South Side. Yes world, gang members are people too. If the system and you don't work well together-- be it work, school, family, church-- you can adapt or fit, exit, or try to change the system from the inside. For the youth of Chicago's south side, they exited the system and created their own. It's human nature.
August 6, 2012
A really thoughtful study of the trajectory of this gang (which has gone through several name permutations), which in its heyday was centered just south of my workplace. I had no idea that for a while its leaders & many members got regular funding for community organizing & other work (War on Poverty & other federal funds administered by a church & nonprofit agency).
December 18, 2024
Enjoyable and informative microhistory. I was expecting an answer to “Why does Chicago have such a problem with gang violence in the present day?”, and that is on me because this is definitely more of a contained story, but nonetheless a very interesting history of an oft underrepresented socioeconomic group.
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