Example research essay topic: African American Street Gangs In Los Angeles - 1,533 words

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... egotist strategies to combat white intimidation and violence, the effectiveness of whites to fight against integration and residential segregation began to fail. Eventually 'white flight' occurred, as white residents began to move into the growing suburban areas that flourished in the 1950 s, leaving the city areas of South Los Angeles behind. This left the central city of Los Angeles as a primarily black enclave, with blacks accounting for 71 percent of the inner-city population (Brunn et al. 1993: 53). By 1960, the three separate communities of Watts, Central Ave, and West Adams had amalgamated into one continuous black settlement area where low, middle, and upper class black neighborhoods were adjoined into a single community.

During the 1960 s, conflicts among the black clubs were growing and, as more white residents continued to move and the white clubs began to fade, the black clubs moved from interracial violence to interracial violence. The Gladiators, based at 54 th Street and Vermont Avenue, were the largest black club on the West side, and clashes between other black gangs were increasing as intra-racial violence between black club members was on the rise. By 1960 several clubs emerged on the West side and rivalry between East side and West side clubs developed, along with infighting among clubs organized on the same side of town (Figure 4. 1). The Businessmen (an East side club) had a rivalry with both the Slausons (an East side club) and the Gladiators (a West side club). Even though more than 50 percent of the gangs active in Los Angeles were Hispanic, black gangs represented a significant proportion of gang incidents that were rapidly increasing in numbers (Study of Delinquent Gangs 1962: 1). During this time, disputes among these were handled by hand-to-hand combat and by the use of weapons, such as tire irons and knives, but murders were rare.

In 1960, the six gang-related murders that occurred in Los Angeles were considered an extremely high number. At that point, black-on-black violence between the clubs was becoming a serious concern in Los Angeles. On the surface, the rivalry between East side and West side clubs was associated with altercations on the football field, disputes over girlfriends, and disagreements at parties, but most of their clashes were rooted in socioeconomic differences between the two. East side youths resented the upwardly mobile West side youths, because East side residents were viewed as economically inferior to those residents who lived on the West side. On the other hand, West side youths were considered less intimidating and lacking the skills to be street savvy and tough.

In an effort to prove themselves equally tough, West side youths engaged in several confrontations with East side youths during the early 1960 s. Several of these clubs fought against each other during this period, but in 1965 after the Watts Rebellion and under the leadership of several socially conscious organizations, most of the rivalry was eradicated. Young black youths moved towards being more politically aware and having greater concern for the social problems that plagued their community. Apprentice "Bunchy" Carter, a member of the Slausons, was successful in transforming several black youths of South Los Angeles into revolutionary soldiers against police brutality (Hilliard & Cole 1993: 218), and several other organizations were also contributing to the change. The Watts Riots of 1965 were considered "the Last Great Rumble, " as members of these groups dismissed old rivalries and supported each other against the despised Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) (Baker 1988: 28; Davis 1990: 297).

Paul Bullock wrote that a result of the riot activity in Watts was a movement to build organizations and institutions which were led by and entirely responsible to the [black] community (1969: 69). Social-Political Period, 1965 - 1970 In the aftermath of the rebellion, young people, namely former club members from the community, began to build political institutions to contest social injustices, specifically police brutality, which sparked the 1965 Watts Riots. Following the Watts Riots, and throughout the rest of the 1960 s, black groups were organizing and becoming politically radical. For nearly five years, beginning in 1965, there were almost no active black street gangs in Los Angeles. Several reports that black gang activity was on the decline began to circulate (Klein 1971: 22). According to Sergeant Warren Johnson, "during the mid and late 1960 s, juvenile gang activity in black neighborhoods was scarcely visible to the public at large and of minimal concern to south-central residents" (Cohen 1972).

It was the formation of these new movements that offered black youths a vehicle of positive identification and self-affirmation that occupied the time and energies that might have been spent in gang activity. A sense of cohesiveness began to form, along with self-worth and positive identification, as pride pervaded the black community (Los Angeles Times 3 / 19 / 72). After the Rebellion in 1965, club members began to organize neighborhood political groups to monitor the LAPD and to document their treatment towards blacks. Ron Wilkins (ex-member of the Slausons), created the Community Action Patrol (CAP) to monitor police abuses (Davis 1990: 297), and William Sampson (ex-member of the Slausons), along with Gerald Aubry (ex-member of the Orientals), started the Sons of Watts, whose key function was to "police the police" (Obtola 1972: 7). The Black Panther Party (BPP) started a chapter in Los Angeles shortly after Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale started the Party in Oakland, California, in 1966. The BPP in Los Angeles also organized both the black Student Union on several high schools campuses in Los Angeles and the black Congress, a meeting place for black residents concerning community issues on Florence and Broadway in 1967.

Ron 'Maulana' Karenga organized a nationalistic group called US Organization, and Tommy Jacquette organized the Self Leadership for All Nationalities Today (SLANT) in October of 1966 (Bullock 1969: 67; Tyler 1982: 222). After splitting away from the US Organization, Hakim Jamal started the Malcolm X Foundation in 1968, and Robaire Nyjuky founded the Marxist Leninist Maoist (MLM), which had an office on 78 th Street and San Pedro (Tyler 1983: 237). Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a national organization of black nationalists visited Los Angeles and opened an office on Central Avenue in 1967. Also during this period, Ron Karenga created Kwanza, a non-religious holiday that celebrates African heritage. All these groups were formed in the wake of the 1965 rebellion to provide political support to the civil rights movement that was gaining strength within the black community of Los Angeles. There were several other black nationalist groups in Los Angeles, but the Panthers and US Organization were considered to have the largest following and the most political influence in the black community of Los Angeles following the Watts Rebellion.

The BPP heavily recruited members from the Slausons, an East side club, while the US Organization had a large a following from the West side clubs, including the Gladiators, but members of both political groups came from a variety of different clubs from all over Los Angeles. Carter was elected president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the black Panther Party (BPP), whose sole purpose was monitoring the actions of the Los Angeles Police Department. Several members of the black Panthers and the US Organization[ 7 ] headed by Ron "Maulana" Karenga, were at one time members of the black clubs of Los Angeles during the 1950 s and early 1960 s. Some experts have suggested that the rivalry between the BPP and US was rooted in previous club rivalry, but it was actually associated with the opposite philosophies of the two groups. After the formation of several progressive groups in Los Angeles, local and federal law enforcement agencies began to target those groups that they viewed as a threat to society and the nation as a whole.

The emerging black consciousness of the 1960 s, that fueled the political movement, was viewed as hostile. The efforts of these political and militant groups to organize young blacks against police brutality were repressed by the FBI, because they specifically viewed the actions of the Panthers and other groups as subversive and a threat to the security of the nation. Chief Thomas Reddin of the Los Angeles Police Department retained the military model and police tactics that his predecessor (Chief Parker) had employed for sixteen years. Reddin believed that the black Panthers represented a major threat to the safety of his officers and their authority on the streets (Scheisl 1990: 168). By 1967, the Panthers were one of the strongest black political groups in the nation, and by November 1968, J.

Edgar Hoover dispatched a memorandum calling his field agents to "exploit all avenues of creating... dissension within the ranks of the BPP" (Churchill and Wall 1990: 63). This was accomplished by the use of counterintelligence (COINTELPRO) which are tactics designed to divide, conquer, weaken, and to make ineffective the actions of a particular organization. COINTELPRO tactics that the FBI began to use against the BPP to weaken its power base, were previously used during the 1940 s and throughout the 1950 s against the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Communist Party (CPUSA) in the Unite...

Research essay sample on African American Street Gangs In Los Angeles