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1. Study guide
Here is the study guide for the upcoming thirty (30) timed quiz, that will be available for 18-
hours. Beginning on Saturday February 25, 2023 @ 6:00 a.m. and end at 11:59 p.m. I’m
offering up to two (2) extra credit points for this study guide which is Due Sunday February
26, 2023 @ 11:59 p.m.
Directions: each response must be cited with the paragraph and page number where you
found the response for your final opinion/conclusion to the study guide statement. All
responses must be in statements 3-4 sentences in length……
What concepts defines a class of people sharing some outward physical characteristics and
commonalities of culture?
What concepts defines a class of people sharing cultural traditions?
Which youth gangs discussed in the Defensive Localism article were multiethnic?
What careers could result from being in a white youth gang lead to according to the
Defensive Localism article?
When were Black youth gangs considered a social problem according to the Defensive
Localism article?
What is the main theme presented in the Defensive Localism article?
What groups are overly represented in law enforcement arrest and incarceration?
What concepts define the process where a social group adopts and integrates the customs
and attitudes of the dominant cultures?
What ethnic groups have been involved in gang activity according to the Defensive Localism
article?
How is white supremacy defined according to the overview of White Supremacist article?
What does the concept ‘apocalypticism refer to according to the overview of White
Supremacist article?
What does the concept ‘dualism’ refer to according to the overview of White Supremacist
article?
Which gangs fought over turf according to the Defensive Localism article?
What are the requirements for joining a white supremacy group according to the overview
of white supremacy article?
What was the results of Black entrepreneurs attempting to open an illegal business
according to the Defensive Localism article?
DEFENSIVE LOCALISM INWHITE AND BLACKA COMPARATIVE HISTORY OFEUROPEAN-
AMERICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN YOUTH GANGSBy Christopher Adamsonl- --,nS,:-."---

2. .:S -rcio-:- 3)-BSTRACTThe activities of European-American and African-American youth
gangshave been closely linked to the operation of changing racial and class struc-tures, In
this article, I compare European-American and African-Americanyouth gangs in four
historical periods: the seaboard city, 1787-1861; theimmigrant city, 1880-1940; the racially
changing city, 1940-1970; andthe hypersegregated city, 1970-1999. I show that the
differences betweenEuropean-American and African-American gangs can be traced to the
racespecific effects of labour, housing and consumer markets, government poli-cies
(especially crime control policies), Iocal politics and organized crime onEuropean-American
and African-American communities. I conclude thatEuropean-American youth gangs
facilitated cultural assimilation because oftheir close ties with formal and informal political
authorities and organiza-tions which commanded substantial social and economic power,
whereasAfrican-American youth gangs reinforced cultural separation because of-:ristopher
Adamson, "Defensive Localism in X4rite and Black: A Comparative History of European---
rerican and African-American Youth Gangs," Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol.23, no. 2, pp.
272-298.:ovright @ 2000 by tylor & Francis Group. Reprinted with permission.153
tbdr €mbddedness in racially segregated, economically marginalized andpolitically
powerless communities.Keyarords: Youth gangs; United States; ethnicity; race; assimilation;
segregation.n a country like the United States in which race and class have been the
centralstructuring principles of urban life, we would expect significant differences inthe
patterns of historical development of European-American and African-American youth or
street gangs. Indeed, the effects of racial and class structureson the behaviour of American
youth gangs have been so profound that scholarswho have sought to develop race-invariant
theories ofgangs and delinquency havebeen stymied.' Over the last fifty years, those
criminologists and sociologists whohave been sensitive to the differential effects of
joblessness, residential segrega-tion and the availability of public services on white and
black communities haveacknowledged the absurdity of attempts to construct a single, race-
invariant modelof youth- gang behaviour.2This is not to say that there are not similarities
between white and black gangs.3It is true, for example, that both white and black youth
gangs have been affected byeconomic disadvantage, family disruption and social
disorganization. Gangs of bothraces have been predators upon, and protectors oi the
communities in which theyare embedded. For black and white teenagers, the gang has been
a place in which toforge an identity and achieve social status. And just as white youth gangs
have attackedvulnerable blacks, black youth gangs have attacked vuinerable whites. For
both races,the gang has performed important community functions which can be
subsumedunder the rubric of defensive localism. These functions include the defence of
territory,the policing of neighbourhoods, the upholding of group honour, and the provision
ofeconomic, social, employment, welfare and recreational services.Despite these
similarities, white and black youth gangs are profoundly differenthistorical creations. They
originated at different times, and their respective relation-ships to labour, housing and
consumer markets, governmental institutions, formaland informal political authority,
organized crime and agencies of crime control havebeen different. in the historical analysis
which ensues, I compare the effects of thesestructural relationships on white and black
youth gangs.WHITE YOUTH GANGS IN THE SEABOARD CITY, I787_1861Black youth gangs

3. did not exist as a recognized social problem until the great migrationof the 1910s when
large numbers of African-Americans came to the northern cities.Indeed, it was only with the
massive second great migration of the mid-twentieth-entury, when ai.utors, police ciangs as
a threat:tilitated against:f three or more slch as the Norfl:sistence of blacl:ovever, that
the-{tiican-America,"nce ofboisterous.:rany blacks, wouWhite youth g.ate 1780s, for exarf
r.oung people h,:.tivities of white-.ellum city, were e:enerally subserr-i:,rder.By the 1820s
rr:orners in New t:{ill, and the outh:angs ofboys foue.:d open lots. For:rom the marsh,
o.eleral Broadway 1,ren called Bunker--ive Points liquor slhe Roach Guards'Labbits adopted
a r:aled on a pike' (-,.ome to a large nur.s New York Tribut:,r charcoal on everIt is
important teighbourhoods th>;ots-Irish, irish Ci.:le same territorial,.icity in shaping th.-i the
O'ConnellGr--r.mericans-someI54 I GANGS AND ADOLESCENT SUBCULTURES
the central. African-structuresscholarsency havegists whoial segrega-nities havehriant
model: rlack gangs.'==:t all'ected bt.angs of bothr lvhich ther":e in which tc.. have
attackec:or both races'-. be subsume;::'ice of territorr':ne provision c-.",undly
differe:"':ective relatior-'.:itutions, form"'-me control har.:e effects of the ..the great
migratiohe northern citiesthe mid-twentietl'entury' when a far more intractable urban
ghetto was created, that politicians, pros-ecutors, police officials and sociar workers began
to view African-American youthqangs as a threat to social order. In the nineteenth century,
the assumptions of casteinilitated against the formation of territorial gangs of free black
youth. No doubt groupsof three or more young blacks got together on many occasions, and
certain rr"*rpup".r,such as lhe North American and United States News Gazette in 1853, did
poini to theexistence of black youth gangs in phiradelphia (Davis 19g2, p.190). It is
significanr,iowever, that these black gangs were neither named nor territorial. At a time
when-frican-American gatherings and parades were regarded with suspicion, the appear-
]nce ofboisterous gangs ofblack teenagers on street corners, even in areas inhabited bynany
blacks, would have been dangerously provocative (Litwack 1961, p. 102).White youth
gangs, in contrast, existed at the very inception of the republic. In the-ate 1780s, for
example, prison reformers commented on the baneful presence of gangsrf young people
hanging out on Philadelphia's street corners (Meranze 1996,p.94). The:ctivities of white
gangs, which became an increasingly visible presence in the ante-rellum city, were geared
to the defence of local neighbourhoods. Gang youth, who were.enerally subservient to
prominent adults in the community, upheld the local racialrrder.By the 1820s white boys in
their teens and early twenties were gathering on street:orners in New York's Bowery and
Five Points districts, Boston's North End and Fortlill, and the outlying Southwark and
Moyamensing sections of Philadelphia. These.angs ofboys fought youths from other
neighbourhoods for control of street corners.rd open lots. For example, New York's Smith
Vly Boys, a gang which took its name-iom the marsh, or lowlands (Dutch Vly) in the lower,
eastern part of the city', fought.everal Broadway gangs for control of the high ground on
present-day Grand Street,.ren called Bunker Hill (Gilje 1987,p.261). The Roach Guards,
named in honour of a. l-e Points liquor seiler, took on the Chichesters, the Plug Uglies and
the Dead Rabbits.-ie Roach Guards'battle uniform was'a blue stripe on the pantaloons, while
the Dead-.abbits adopted a red stripe, and at the head of their sluggers carried a dead rabbit
im---aled on a pike' (Asbury 1928, p. 23). The impoverished suburbs of Philadelphia

4. werecme to a large number of turf defending white gangs whose 'verminous designations',.,
-Yew York Tribune reporter George Foster (1848, p. 35) put it, 'were written in chalk-
charcoal on every dead-wall, fence, and stable door'.It is important to recognize that white
gangs were often multi-ethnic, especially in- =ighbourhoods that were not rigidly
segregated by ethnicity. Dutch, English, Welsh,::ots-Irish, Irish Catholics, Germans and
persons of mixed ancestry could be found in-,3 same territorially denned youth gang.
Territory was often more important than eth-- 'ity in shaping the formation of white youth
gangs. New York's Bowery gangs, such-, ihe O'Connell Guards, the Atlantic Guards, the
American Guards and the True Blue--:rericans-some of which were nativist and Protestant,
others Irish Catholic-putDEFENSTVE LOCALTSM rN WHITE AND BLACK I 155
aside their ethnic differences in order to defend their territory against Fir-. - . -=,gangsa
(Asbury 1928,p.28; Sante 1991, p. 200),It is central to this article's argument to recognize
that white youth gangs e:' -. :: iimeasure of support from the adult population, To be sure,
gang boys annoyed ai--., r'swearing and carrying on loudly in the streets; and their drinking,
fighting, dis:..:=:for property and theft disrupted the fabric of social life. But white gangs
were spo:.. . -:iby politically powerful adults, who rewarded them for defending the local
neig::. --hood. in some instances, youth gangs served an informal policing function. Ganq :,:'
.in New York, for example, 'served as informal neighborhood constabularies. --:''stood about
on street corners with a studied watchful glower, making sure, as one )i.-*Yorker recalled,
that anyone who was 'exotic or unfamiliar' would not cause tr.- -: ror linger too
long'(Wilentz 1984, p. 262). Gang boys also considered it their d*:. ::protect young women
in the neighbourhood. In the Bowery young toughs chased .::.-prowling outsiders and
voyeuristic 'aristos' seeking sexual liaison with Bower- i.r:(Stansell 1987,p.95).It was thus
a hallmark of white defensive localism that street gangs were subserr':. -to powerful adults
in the community. Gangs allied themselves with social and polir::-clubs and often took
direction from political bosses, who depended on them to mobi-.:.the vote and protect
polling places on election days. Membership in a youth gang co;,:lead to a career in local
politics. Thus William McMullen, Philadelphia's influen::-saloon keeper, alderman, prison
inspector and political boss, started his career as .member of the Killers, one of the cityt
violent Irish-Catholic fighting gangs,White youth gangs patrolled streets and secured
neighbourhood boundaries. Tr-.Killers, for example, won the support of the people of
Moyamensing by protecting the:.from nativist invaders and by occasionally distributing
food to the poor (Silcox 1989, :46). However, white youth gangs like the Killers also
participated in coilective attackon free blacks. Given the caste assumption of black
ontological inferiority, white ganrboys looked upon black Americans as a people to whom
the rules of honour-basecconflict did not apply, and viciously assaulted inoffensive black
women and elderlvblack rnen during riots.In the 1830s young Irish and native-born
workingmen expressed their contempt forNew York's African Americans by savagely
attacking black patrons of white drinkingand eating houses, and by destroying the property
of successful black tavern keepers(Kaplan L995, pp,606-9). In Philadelphia, in 1834, a 'party
of half grown boys' pre-cipitated a three night riot by attacking a tavern with an interracial
clientele. A mobthen invaded the streets and alleys of Moyamensing, assaulting free blacks,
looting theirhomes, destroying their furniture and bedding, and forcing many of them to flee

5. intothe city or across the Delaware. Many of the rioters described their activities as
'huntingthe nigs' (Runcie 1972,p.190). in 1849 Philadelphids Killers burnt down the
CaliforniaHouse Tavern, an establishment owned by a mulatto who had married a white
woman..- l--r:l::--..::- ;,-- ;-. :::- a1-u -i-- r '..:IiI-i:.:--: -' -:l alctne s;'.. --.,.i -;; --a UlrL tlli,e-'- -,...,
of the.:.:,1e r in co:l:e" '':ite vouil :.::rt to rvard pr)-::'.tlv racist. In i !..e int,olvemeni '-:rt of
Chicago's- ,:g'87.4 per .e:.. ::rt of Chicago's,,.r's, rvhile a 'ii;:hrasher 1936. rProgressive-e::-
.;rlti-ethnic. Thr'. rr example, the-: of Italian an.:I56 I GANGS AND ADOLESCENT
SUBCULTURES
IIII - : PtrL--,.:tF .-io-ec -!-= - jults -[. - .resp.--f : r --r)t1SOI-..t' - . Shbou.F ::nq bo., :l-- -:.:sl
Th.E. -) lne Na-,{- -:: trOUi-:: - :.t. dut' ,5 - -.-sed afi::: -.', erf- gi: ,-s in 1834, a mob then
proceeded to hunt down pedestrians on the streets of the-frican-American section of
Moyamensing, killing three blacks and injuring at least:ro dozen others (Feldberg 1980,
p. 59; Laurie 1980, p. 156).The Irish antipathy towards African Americans was partly
fuelled by competitionor jobs on the docks, shipyards and building construction sites, and
partly rooted int herrenvolk republicanism ,hich sought to deprive free biacks of any of
the rightsrnjoyed by white citizens and members of the producing classes (Roediger 1991,
p,1.17). This antipathy found its ugliest expression in Nerv York City's draft riot of 1863rnd
in Phiiadelphias yoting day riot of 1871 (Lane 1986, p. 10; Bernstein 1990, p. 66).The
impulse of Irish-Cathoiic youth gangs to victimize African Americans became anrndeniable
element in the century-long cultural transformation of the United Statesrom a haven of
Protestant purity to a white republic that included Catholics. Poor lrish.rnmigrants strove to
assimilate or, as Noel ignatiev (i995, pp.163*76) has put it, to'be---ome white'byvictimizing
African Americans. As earl1, as the antebellum period, then,relonging to a r,vhite gang
facilitated the cultural assimilation of European immigrants.VHITE YOUTH GANGS IN THE
IMMIGRANT CITY, I88O_I940 significant number of the 13.5 million people who came to
the United States from:outh, Central, and Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1924 settled in
the cities of theortheast and Midwest. The economic ]rardship and cultural dislocation
experiencedl.many immigrant parents made it dilicult for them to adequately discipline
their chil-:ren, let alone supervise their school work or guide them into rewarding
employment.-nmigrant children, r,r,ho found themseives caught between the oldworld
communai:ractices of their parents and the norms of an often hostile host society,
frequently gotogether in corner groups and gangs.White youth gangs in the immigrant city
were often multi-ethnic, generally subser-'ient to ward politicians, resolutely territorial,
delinquent in varying degrees and r.iru-.:ntiy racist. In 1927 the countryt foremost gang
expert, Frederic Thrasher, highlighted,he involvement of immigrants in the youth gangs of
Chicago. He noted that 70.4 per:ent of Chicagot 10-24-year-old males were bo,vs of foreign
extraction, while a 'whop-:ing'87.4 per cent of the cityb gangs i^/ere gangs of foreign boys.
In contrast,25.7 per,ent of Chicago's 10*24-year-old maies were American (that is, native
white parentage)roys, rvhile a'miniscule'5.3 per cent of the city's gangs were gar-rgs of
American boysIhrasher 1936, p. 193, Table 5).Progressive-era white youth gangs, like their
antebelium predecessors, l,r,ere often:-rulti-ethnic. Thrasher's data include myriad
examples of etl-rnically mixed white gangs.:or example, the Tent Gang, which stole tinned
goods from railroad cars, was made:p of Italian and Polish boys. The Elstons, who fought

6. 'innumerable battles of lists:: : --bservie:. .:.1 politi;'-:omobili::-. lang cou,:.: influent--.: .i.l€eI
3S ::a-:.iaries. T:-.-':e cting the::'i.--ox 1989.:e .tiYe attac-i:-,.. rr.hite gar..:onour-base:l and
elder-.ontempt tc,:nite drinkin.ivern keepe:.,rn boys'prr'ntele. A mo:. lootrng ther:m to flee
intles as'huntin=he Californr;thite womanDEFENSTVE LOCALTSM tN WHTTE AND BLACK |
157_-L-
and bricks' against the Polish Belmonts, were Irish and Swedish. The O'Brien |uniors,known
for their tradition of initiating new members by'kicking them aroundl includedIrish,
Scottish, and Swedish boys. The Twelfth Street Boundary Gang was composedof Polish,
Bohemian and Greek lads, Italian boys were invited to join a Iewish gang inthe Maxwell
Street area 'because of their compatibility and their residence in the area'(Thrasher 1936,
pp. 1 36, 1 80, 258,282,310).Thrasher determined the race and ethnicity of 880 out of the
1,313 gangs known toexist in Chicago at the time. If we exclude the sixty-three Negro gangs,
the twenty-fivemixed Negro-white gangs, and the five miscellaneous gangs, as shown in
Table 1, then787 of these 880 gangs were European-American gangs. Of this number, 351
gangs (or44.6 per cent) were of mlxed European-American ethnicity. Such a large
percentageof ethnic mixing within gangs reflected the fact that immigrant Chicago was
ethni-cally heterogeneous. As Thomas Philpott (1978, pp. B9-a2) has revealed, the
averagenumber of nationalities in Chicago's immigrant neighbourhoods was twenty-
two.None of the immigrant groups represented more than 50 per cent of the populationin
their neighbourhoods, except for the Poles, who constituted 54 per cent of
theirneighbourhood.As in the antebellum period, white youth gangs often attached more
importance tothe defence of territory than to the promotion of the honour of a specific
ethnic iden-tity. Feuds between rival white gangs were tlpically about turf, and so persisted
evenwhen the ethnic composition of the feuding gangs changed. Moreover, many whitegang
boys interyiewed by Thrasher expressed an existentiai disinterest in the questionof
ethnicity. Aw, we never ask what nationality dey arel said a Polish boy. 'If dey aregood guys,
dey get in our gang. Dat's all we wantl To be sure, ethnicity and territorysometimes
converged. For example, ]ewish boys in Chicago were at risk when theytravelled
unprotected through solidly Polish territory (Thrasher 1936, pp. 215,197).In ethnically
polyglot white areas, however, the impetus for gang conflict was usuallyterritorial rather
than ethnic.Table I Race and nationalities (ethnicities) of gangs in ChicagoNumber
ofgangsRace orethnicityPercentage oftotal
gangsSlavicBohemianGermanSwedishLithuanianMiscellaneouTotallrurcATEffiA]T!Politicall
y porer:-J, such as breakini,ieet signs, disturb':om stores, breakin,.:es (Philpott
L978,=rr'arded them for p.,:r'ernments and p<-:orvned on activitie- - the youth
gang's::aches, and out oft- alls (Spear L967, p.Ward politicians,-anding. The formc,--
ubhouse, while th,-.f votes, and chase- culd mitigate the pr::oceeds of their illeLocal
politicians.:tic clubs. Cook Co-thletic Club on C. qhting gang of Irislrotto was'Hit me
a:ommunity. Ragen (-{-€nu€ extending sc::ossing Wentworth:{ughes, then a high=i'ery
working day, t:rake their way throfuttle 1970, pp. 103Youth gangs serYl.t 1917, Philadelphi-
970, pp. 32-66; FraMixed ethnicitiesPolishItalianIrishNegroAmerican whiteMixed negro-
whiteJewish35114899756345252039.89t6.82tL.258.s27.t65.112.842.27I58 I GANGS AND
ADOLESCENT SUBCULTURES

7. E:-en Junior.tr-:t1l includs-l':: COmpOSa:[. ish gang 1.:,i in the are;:-,gs known:,.-.3 twenty-
fi';- labie 1, the:-151 gangs (c':':. percentaE:rrl was ethn-:. the averaq:: t,Venty-twr:e
populatio- cent of the :.mportance:; ethnic idei-.:ersisted eve,:. urany lvhi:.: tl-ie questio'or:
'If dey a:.and territo:sk when thepp. 215, 19-ct was usua.-aee ofangst9l2t-
;l6II;SlavicBohemianGermanSrvedishLithuanianMisceilaneousTotal1.821.36.9t.79.69.57100
.00--;e:fiiaslea(193o+. 191). Ttle tein-Etrni-ityTas been subitiTuted for nailonatitf.?olitically
powerfui aduits did not approve of many of the things that white gangs- such as breaking
windows, reporting false fire aiarms, cutting cable lines, defacing'::t signs, disturbing the
peace at night, insulting people on the sidewalk, pilfering:r stores, breaking into private
dweilings, and looting factory yards and construction':. rPhilpott 7978,p.73). Nevertheless,
those adults sponsored white street gangs, and, ':ded them for playing a key role in
neighbourhood defence, especially since urban:rnments and police forces were weak,
ineffective and often corrupt. Whiie aduits'red on activities which undermined the quality of
community life, they approved^e touth gang's role in keeping strangers, especially blacks,
offtheir streets and, - -'.res, and out of their parks, baseball diamonds, swimming pools,
saloons and dance. , Spear 1967,p.206; Kusmer 1976,p. 185).', ard politicians and street
gang leaders often reached a mutually beneficial under-:ing. The former would pay the rent
of an apartment that could serye as a gang, - rouse, while the latter would distribute
campaign leaflets, put up posters, hustle. ,.rtes, and chase opponents from polling booths on
election days. Ward bosses- ,r rnitigate the police harassment of gangs, and gangs could turn
over a share of the-:e ds of their illegal activities.- -,cal politicians legitimized street gangs by
sponsoring neighbourhood ath-, ;iubs. Cook County's Democratic Commissioner, Frank
Ragen, set up the Ragen.:ic Club on Chicago's Halsted Street. This club rvas home to Ragen's
Colts, a. rg gang of Irish youth ranging in age from seventeen to thirty. This gang, lr,hose' .,
ras 'Hit me and you hit a thousandl provided a de facto policing service for the:runity.
Ragen Colt territory was the Back of the Yards district west of Wentworth, ..e extending
south from 43rd to 63rd Street. Any black who made the mistake of, :rs Wentworth Avenue
risked being seriously injured. in 1918 the poet, Langston- -:-i, then a high school student,
made this mistake and was badly beaten up. Yet,',''orking day, thousands of biack labourers
had to cross Wentworth Avenue and. :reir way through hostile Irish and Polish streets in
order to get to the stockyards. i970, pp. 103, i99).,-ih gangs served as nuclei for the white
mob during the race riots in East St. Louis-. Philadelphia in i918 and Chicago in 1919
(Rudwick 1964,pp,41-57; Tuttlell. 32*66; Franklin ),975,p.340). The Chicago Commission
on Race Relations,l6t28765880DEFENSIVE LOCALISM IN WHITE AND BLACK 1 I59
which investigated the causes of the city's five-day riot, concluded that'the riot it: -.;not have
gone beyond the first clash'were it not for the involvement of local g3rr9S : r"iathletic cltbs
(1922,pp.11-17). Members of Ragen's Colts, for example, drove intc ,-.Black Belt at night,
setting fire to wooden porches and shacks, and firing their gu:. rthe windows and roofs of
tenement buildings.Approximately two-fifths of the violent confrontations between whites
and bl:.:-.--during the Chicago riot occurred in Bridgeport. Young people in this cohesive
i::=Catholic neighbourhood belonged to the Hamburg Social and Athletic Club. The lc:--:gang
known as the Hamburgs or Hamburgers were active participants in the st:=fighting. As the
journalist Mike Royko (1971,p. 37) has noted, it is likelythat one of :.-:Hamburgs, the

8. seventeen-year-old boy, Richard i. Daley, future mayor of the citr. -,.:.caught up in the
violence.Another gang active in the riot, the Dirty Dozen, armed themselves with 'rer o--.-
ers, blackjacks, and knives, and started out to get the "niggers". An ex-gang mem::-
recounted that about twenty gang members stopped a 'street car filled with color.:people' at
35th and State Streets, which was about 'five miles or more from their or':territoryi In the
ensuing fracas, a 'colored woman slashed a boy by the name of Shag:Martin across the heart
with a razor. Infuriated by this, the white gang extracted r-e:,-geance by killing two blacks
and seriously injuring five others (Thrasher 1936, p. 1-This kind of racial violence was an
offshoot of the politics of white defensive localism ,--,the cities of the Progressive era.BLACK
YOUTH GANGS IN THE IMMIGRANT CITY, ]880_1940The immigrant city was the birthplace
of the African-American youth gang, Mos:of our knowledge of the black youth gangs of this
period comes from Thrasher's re-search, Whereas African-American boys accounted for
approximately 3.8 per cent o:Chicago's total boy population, African-American gangs made
up 7.4 per cent of thetotal number of city gangs (Thrasher 1936, p. 193). The finding that
the involvemen:of African-American boys in gangs was greater than their representation in
the overal.population of young people makes sense in the light of the fact that they were
barreifrom unionized factory jobs, clerical positions and even unskilled, part-time
positions.Thrasher also found some racial mixing in the gangs of Progressive-era Chicago,
AsTable 1 reveals, twenty-five of the 880 gangs of known race and ethnicity were
mixed'Negro-white' gangs. Although only 2.8 per cent of the total, this percentage is
relativell-high when considered in the light of the small number of racially mixed gangs
reportedin the far more racially segregated cities of the second half of the twentieth
century.To be sure, white ethnic mixing in gangs was far more extensive than racial
mixing.As Table 1 shows, 28 per cent (25 of 88) of Chicago's African-American gangs
were150 I GANGS AND ADOLESCENT SUBCULTURES- -r_ i'...,- .' i. .. :-'.'-,.----- t- -*---- --,I i-.,-..-
.-,--.-.''.-'-'.I rr_1f,. -:- - lr,'- -, _..- ' - ,1ri +n- .-r. L,rl tt.t -: - r::zberg ;:.' :-ai..tn.l -.r-t-- - - - .1.-t- --
- duLLtIr
I :'-ot woudr qangs andr:','e into the-.--eir guns atracially mixed, while 44.6 per cent (351
of 787) of the cityt European-American gangsrvere of mixed white ethnicity. The existence
of racially mixed youth gangs was becauseAfrican Americans often lived interspersed
amongwhites. The arrival of southern blacksin Chicago's ]ewish neighborhoods created
friction, but the Negro boys brought in bythis migration', one of Thrasher's informants
stated (1936,p.216), 'are being received ina friendly way by |ewish boys, and Jewish gangs
are now fraternizing with the negroesiWhereas the white youth gangs of this period derived
support from local politicalauthorities and were aggressive in the defence of turf, black
youth gangs existed in com-munities that were not yet large enough or ecologically distinct
enough to sanction thevigorous defence of turf.s In Washington and Philadelphia, African
Americans, manyof whom worked as domestic servants, Iived in unmapped alleys and
streets behindthe eiegant houses of their white employers (Borchert 1980, p. 135;Lane
1986, p.2l).In New York, prior to the black settlement of Harlem in the 1910s, African
Americanslived on many different blocks between 20th and 63rd Streets (Osofsky 1966, p.
l2).On Chicago's South Side,less than a dozen blocks were'entirely Negro in 1910
(Spear1967, p.20). 'We have no LITTLE AFRICA in Clevelandj an African-American

9. clerkboasted in 1915. 'There is not yet a single street in this city that is inhabited by
nothingbut Negroes' (Kusmer 1976,p. 42). As late as 1930, following two decades of
migrationirom the South, blacks were widely dispersed throughout Pittsburgh (Gottlieb
1987,tp.66-67).In the same year, most of Milwaukee's blacks lived in white residential
areasTrotter 1985, p. 67).In none of these cities was the biack population large enough
for:he formation of territorially aggressive black youth gangs. In the 1919 Chicago
riot,according to the Commission investigating its causes, African-American gangs playedan
insignificant and largely defensive role (1922, pp. 11-17).The exclusion of African
Americans from urban political structures, their subor-linate role in organized crime and
the hostility of predominantly white police forces:.lso inhibited the rise of turf-defending
black street gangs. The white business elite,:eal estate developers, city politicians, police
forces and dominant figures in organized:rime conspired to locate the vice industry in areas
of the city that were inhabited by-arge numbers of black people.6 Yet, the illegal economy
associated with prostitution,rambling and the provision of bootleg alcohol was largely
controiled by whites. inJhicago's'Leveel Detroit's'Paradise Valleyi or Clevelandt'Roaring
Thirdi white crime.rndicates hired young black males to work as bouncers in speakeasies,
as lookouts.r brothels, and as numbers runners. Black entrepreneurs who attempted to
establish:reir own rackets were ruthlessly suppressed. In Harlem, for example, Dutch
Schultz::lied on the police to wrest control of the policy racket away from Stephanie St.
ClairSchatzberg and Kelly 1996,p.90). The racial order upheld by corrupt politicians,
police.orces, and white criminal syndicates permitted neither collective forms of illegality
by:lack adults nor the aggressive defence of turf by black youth.s and blackshesive Irish-ft.
rr,. yortt!r the streetht one of theithe city, wasrdth'revolv-,ang memberrrith coloredrm their
ownne of Shaggrrtracted ven-t936, p. 47).,'e localism inr gang. Mostlhrasher's re-8 per cent
of:r cent oftheinvolvemeatin the overallr were barredme positionsa Chicago. AsF were
mixedge is relativelyangs reportedh century.racial mixingn gangs wereDEFENSTVE
LOCALTSM rN WHTTE AND BLACK I r 6r
WHITE YOUTH GANGS IN THE RACIALLY CHANGING CITY, 1940_1970White youth gangs at
mid-century continued to defend turf and uphold the racialorder, and derive support for
doing so from political leaders and organized crimefigures. Ethnically heterogeneous areas
continued to produce ethnically mixed gangs.Irish, Italian, Polish, Serbian and Mexican boys
who lived on the same block or streetin South Chicago joined the same gang and fought
similarly mixed gangs from otherblocks (Kornblum 1974, p.74).ln New York's Spanish
Harlem, one particular Italiangang included 'maybe twenty guys who were Puerto Rican
(Wakefield L957, p. 126).In Boston's Roxbury, the Senior Bandits and the Outlaws were
predominantly IrishCatholic, but also included a few Protestants of British ancestry, French
Canadians, andItalians (Miller 1969, pp. 16-20).Elsewhere in Boston, the intermarriage of
Irish and Italian families affected gangfighting. For many years, Charlestown's Irish-
American gangs had been at feud withItalian-American youth from the North End. The
bridge across the river was the site ofbattles which dragged on for hours and involved
hundreds of adolescents armed withbottles, two-by-fours (timber planks), and slingshots.
With the intermarriage of Irishand Italian families, however, Italian families began to settle
in Charlestown. ThereafterCharlestown's residents began to view the Champas, Saccos, and

10. Castranovas as 'burItalians" or "white Italians" to distinguish them from "the goddamned
Italians" acrossthebridge'(Lukas 1985, p. 155).The traditional role which white youth gangs
played in neighbourhood defencebecame more important during the 1950s when the influx
of southern blacks created atidal wave of urban racial transition.T Adults seeking to keep
their neighbourhoods whiteformed neighbourhood improvement and
homeowners'associations which mobilizedyouth gangs to do much of their dirty work. In
the housing riots which occurred in theChicago neighbourhoods of Fernwood and
Englewood in 1947 and 1949, roving youthgangs terrorized the South Side, hauling blacks
off streetcars and attacking Universitl'of Chicago students assumed to be sympathetic to
racial desegregation (Hirsch 1983,p. 54). White youth gangs targeted black teenagers in
neighbourhoods like Oakland,Kenwood, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Park Manor and Englewood
that were undergoingpartial or complete racial transition. In the early 1960s, a large white
gang attackedparticipants in the so-called 'wade-ins'-protests against the segregation of
Chicagotbeaches. This kind of activity was supported by adults. Gang boys who chased
blackpedestrians out of their neighbourhoods were, ]ames Short and Fred Strodtbeck
(1965,pp. i93, 114) noted,'spurred on to greater efforts by adults of the area who
offeredadvice and encouragementiIn Detroit, white homeowners'associations relied on
youth support in their militantresponse to racial change. When a black family purchased a
home in a white neighbour-hood, youth gangs could be counted on to throw stones and
bottles at the newcomerthouse, pile garbq247-58). Duringrm the Upper Eashouse worker,
'a rthe Puerto Ricanr1960s Brooklyn, uDushwick and Reccrs Italian youth$ore, and armed
1of their parks (CoWhite street gDetroit's HamtranArtomobile Workraighborhood stn507).
However, thb7 terrorizing blah this regard, mua mid-century w.rther than on apaberitage
(KornblurAFRICAN-AMER1940-1?70Ihe rapidly growiAfrican-Americanporerty', black
youtritory. However, exdthe city so thatLoys received morioete political or erd[sadvantaged
blaceo from opportunitvirlent gang feudinInitially, the geciR between black
idcnselypopulated 1rith white gangs irrbt, black youth gI62 I GANGS AND ADOLESCENT
SUBCULTURES
I the racidlir"d .ri*.!*"a g*g*lck or street[to* ottohrlar Italianfur,p. rzsy.lntly Irishhdians,
andfected gangtr feud withts the site ofarmed withiage of Irishl Thereafterlvas as 'burians"
acrossrod defenceks created aroodswhiter mobilizedrrred in
thervingyouth;Universitylirsch 1983,e Oakland,undergoing1g attackedrf Chicago'srased
blackbeck (1965,rho offeredeir militantneighbour-rewcomer'sruse, pile garbage on his
lawn, block his drivervay or slash his tires (Sugrue 1996, pp.-l--,58). During the late 1950s,
in what was then still the italian section of Manhattan.- the Upper East Side, much of the
gang fighting was, according to a local settlement,use worker, 'a reflection of the insecurity
of the adults, who felt very hostile toward.: Puerto Ricans and Negroes' who were moving in
(Spergel 1964, p. 64).In mid-r60s Brooklyn, rvhite adults moving out of Crown Heights, East
Flatbush, Brownsville,*shwick and Red Hook sanctioned youth gang violence directed at
minority newcom-, -.. Italian youth gangs in East New York vandalized a black realty olhce
and groceryrre, and armed themselves with Iug wrenches to keep blacks olf their streets
and out;heir parks (Connoliy 1977, p. 134).White street gangs were active at Chrysler
Corporation's Dodge Main Plant in:troit's Hamtramck municipality during the 1950s. The

11. iocal chapter of the United-...tomobile Workers, in its ellorts to uphold male white
supremacy, 'drew support from..ghborhood street gang members rvho had taken u,ork in
the plant' (Boyle 1997, p.' -). Hor,vever, the usual way for white street gangs to uphold
rvhite supremacy wasterrorizing black newcomers in neighbourhoods threatened with
racial change.this regard, multi-ethnic r,vhite gangs signihed that social soiidarity among
r,vhitesnid-century was increasingly founded on a common identification with territory-.rer
than on a particularistic identification rvith a specific European ethnic or cultural.:itage
(Kornblum and Beshers 1988, p. 219)._ -RICAN-AMERICAN YOUTH GANGS IN THE
RACIALLY CHANGING CITY,:40-l 970.: rapidiy growing urban black population led to an
increase in the number of:ican-American youth gangs.s With the creation of large areas of
concentrated black. erty, black youth gangs begar-r to defend themselves and enter
adjoining white ter-,rl,'. Hon ever, extreme ghettoization ultimately cut black youth off from
lvhite areas' .he city so that black youth gangs began to prey on each other. While biack
gang. s received moral support from adults for defending turf, they received little con-'::e
political or economic support because of the relative polveriessness of adults in- -
rdvantaged black communities. The exclusion of black youth from legal jobs as well.' .:om
opportunities in white controlled criminal syndicates resulted in an increase in.ent gang
feuding among black youth.Initially, the geographic expansion of the black ghettos ied to an
increase in fight-. between black and white youth gangs. As early as the 1940s, teenagers in
Detroit's-: lely populated ghetto, Paradise ralle),, hung out on street corners and got into
fightsr r.vhite gangs in parks and playgrounds (Thomas 1992,p. 119). During the 1943..
black youth gangs adopted the same tactics that white gangs had traditionallyDEFENSIVE
LOCALISM IN WHITE AND BLACK I I63I :7A
used against black people. They assaulted white stuclents and factory workers
returninghome on streetcars, and they hurled bricks at unsrlspecting rvhite motorists (Lee
andHumphrey 1943, p.28). In Chicago, biack youth ,ivere no longer the passive victimsof
rvhite r.iolence. In 1957, when a white gang killed a black ysulh at 59th Street andKedzie,
black gangs retaliated and seriously assar-rlted twelve n'hites (Hirsch 1983, p.291), Black
gangs increasingiy challenged whites o.ire111r. use of streets, bridges, beach-es, parks,
school piaygrounds, restaurants, ballrooins and roller rinks. Black teenagerson Chicago's
South Side took on the Diablos, a wfLite gang which tried to keep themout of the Capitol
Theater. Reminiscing about the night his gang fought their way intothe theatre, a former
gang member, interviewed fol the frlmThe Promised Land (1995),remarked ironicall,v, 'that
was my first experience c,l integratioil:Hor,vever, one effect of the doubling of black spatial
isolation in northern citiesbetn'een 1930 and 1970 was that turf-oriented lrlack youth
gangs became increas-ingly likely to prey on each other (Massey and De:Lton 7993, p.46) .e
Turf rivalries onChicago's West Side enmeshed the Imperial Chapilns and the Clovers,
forerunners oithe Vice Lords and the Eglptian Cobras (Perkinr; 1987,p.28). Black-on-black
gangwarfare'lvas endemic to the massive public housingl estates constructed in the middle
oislum neighbourhoods. One of wartime Chicago's lar:gest youth gangs, the Deacons,
wasborn in the Ida B. Wells housing project just a fel'r years after its completion in
1941.The Deacons took on the Destroyers, who lived to the north of the projects, and the
13Cats, who occupied the area south of Oaklvood Bcruievard (idem). From the

12. GovernorHerrry Horner Homes, a project nhich opened c,n the Near West Side in
1957,theVice Lords and Black Souls, a faction of the Devif i; Disciples, fought with white
gangslocated in the neighbourhood to the north. When the nhites moved ar,r,ay, the
ViceLords and Black Souls fbught each other (Kotlor,r,itz 1991, p. 18). In the early
1960s.Devil's Disciples, Blackstone Rangers, and Vice l.ords begar-r to carr,e up sections
ofthe twomile-long, quarter-of-a-mile-wide strip of twenty-eight identical sixteen-
storer'buildings along State Street that comprised the Robert Taylor Homes (Lemann
1991.p.226).As the population of vast areas of Philadelphia's north side became exclusiveiy
blackin the 1960s, gang fighting became increasingly irl-raraciai. ln 7973, for example,
t'noNorth Philadelphia gangs, the Valley gang and the Norris Street gang, fought over
anabandoned area known as the graveyard' which c,onsisted of '3 or 4 acres of
smashecibrick and twisted tailpipe' (Lieber 1975,p,42). In L.os Angeles, conflict-oriented
blackgangs began to form in the housing projects in 1,,ratts during the 1950s. A little far-
ther north in the FlorencelFirestone district, which was undergoing racial transition.the
Slausons emerged partly in response to attack:s by whites on def'enseless blacks.However,
white flight led to turf-and hor-rour-based rivalries between the Slausons andvarious Watts
gangs. A few 1.ears after the formalion of the first Crip gang in 1969.marauding Crips,
belonging to different sets, such as the West Side Crips, Main Street-.:s and Grape St::rfton,
rvho the:I .s. Srvans, and c- : s not onl- rr'e:,-: -:1r' turf and hor' -:-tar-ri 1998, pp:rtreme
racial s,'-,--''' eliminated cc-.'.edorn 1988; D,' ,--i-rr-hite gane r,- *..: near lvhite rvo- rrmity of
the prerighbourhood ofhrcial youth violencThe increased vlrnerican neighbotidly i, cities
like Pdestructive conflilas that opportunil940 Italian gangst(tiladelphia, ClevelSicago's
lucrative tmd Kelly 1996, ppL9i0s to develop intcriminal organizatiro launder money
I,ommunities (IanniRichard Clowanin their influential ttion and communitt€nd to decrease
thrtheir participation :fieases the degree trgument was emprthat sophisticated, iand
narcotics sellinriolence, such as mrirmong youthful oflestablished ghetto crrend on the
newly]64 I GANGS AND ADOLESCENT SUBCULTURES
teturning(Lee andB victims[reet and[ 1983, p.es, beach-teenagerseep themr way intomd
(1ee5),hern citiesre increas-ivalries onrunners ofblack gang:middle ofacons, wasn in
1941.and the 13: Governort 1957, therhite ganpp the Vicearly 1960s,sections ofteen-
storeynann 1991,sivelyblac&ample, twoght over anof smashedented bladA little far-
ltransitioq:less blackrlausons andng in 1969,Main StredCrips and Grape Street Watts Crips,
began to lrictimize youth living on Piru Street inCompton, who then banded together for
proter:tion. The Pirus, Brims, Bishops, BloodFives, Swans, and other gangs formed the nu