Eta
The ghettoization of Blacks in Los Angeles: The emergence of street gangs
In the zoot suit riots, the focus was primarily Mexicans and
white citizens and servicemen in the central Los Angeles business and entertainment
district. African–Americans were also attacked and beaten and stripped on a regular
basis, even if they were without zoot suit attire. When white citizens and servicemen
attempted to move east to Central Avenue, large groups of African–American youth
showed a force in numbers and dissuaded the attackers. What was even more
interesting is that the zoot suit riots sparked a series of race riots in U.S. urban areas.
Detroit stood out as the worst one when 25 blacks were killed (Gilje 1996).
Such
incidents were also the catalyst for the emergence of Los Angeles’ first African–
American street gangs, which emerged as a defensive response to white violence in
the schools and streets during the late 1940s.
The segment of the African–American community left in the ghetto was forced to
adapt to an unprecedented level of invisibility and neglect. From 1959 to 1965,
furthermore, African–Americans were excluded from the lucrative construction and
aerospace jobs, and the youth suffered the most (Northrup 1944). Median incomes in
South Central declined by nearly a tenth, and African–American unemployment rose
from 12% to 20% overall, and 30% in Watts (Davis 1992)....
Among the worst of these social problems were drugs and gangs, and as one
author wrote on the eve of the Watts “riots,”
“Marijuana and pills of all varieties [were] readily available on and off the
campus of David Starr Jordan High School. In a corner lot adjoining Jordan
Downs project, the dropouts and delinquents of the “parking lot gang” terrif[ied]
the rest of the community” (Bullock 1969, p. 51).
Nevertheless, gang youth at this time was tied up with “the generational awaken-
ing of Black Power,” and still did not, therefore, play an entirely negative role in the
community. During one protest at a local whites-only drive-in restaurant, for instance,
it was the timely arrival of the Slausons gang, based in Fremont High area, which
saved the protestors from an attack by Whites. In this way, gangs such as the Slausons
and the Gladiators (from the 54th Street area) “became a crucial social base for the
rise of the local Black Liberation movement” (Davis 1992, p. 287). The first phase of
African–American gang formation from the late 1940s until the Watts Riots had
passed (Cureton 2008).
This era had been characterized by African–American youth
mobilizing against the violence and racism of white youth, particularly in the local
schools. As African–American gangs such as the Bossmen, Businessmen, and
Slausons fought white gangs such as the Spookhunters, the battles were waged on
an entirely different level than the violent, self-destructive drug wars of today’s gangs.
Following the Watts “riots” of August, 1965, furthermore, there was a period of 3 to
4 years when
rival gang hostilities were put aside to some degree, and African–
American youth instead immersed themselves in the Black Power revolution.
“Two leading Slausons, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter… and Jon Huggins be-
came the local organizers of the Black Panther Party, while a third, Brother
Crook (aka Ron Wilkins) created the Community Alert Patrol to monitor police
abuse. Meanwhile an old Watts gang hangout near Jordan Downs, the “parking
lot,” became a recruiting center for the “Sons of Watts” who organized and
guarded the annual Watts Festival” (Davis 1992, p.64).
