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LA Gangs. The demise of the Black Panther Party and the rise of Street Gangs. Early Period. Late 1940s to about 1965 Defensive groups of blacks form to fight off white hate groups Watts, Huntington Park, South Gate
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LA Gangs The demise of the Black Panther Party and the rise of Street Gangs
Early Period • Late 1940s to about 1965 • Defensive groups of blacks form to fight off white hate groups • Watts, Huntington Park, South Gate • White dissatisfaction with increased black presence due to WWII economic build up • Didn’t like blacks challenging housing laws that effectively kept them out of the ‘good’ public schools by barring them from purchasing homes outside their original settlement neighborhood.
Watts Rebellion: the Merger • Car Club ‘gangs’: Low Riders, Coasters, Highwaymen • Black ‘gangs’: Huns, Farmers from Watts, Slausons, Blood Alley • 1965-Watts Rebellion • Episodes of social violence in reaction to hostile police arrests • Surrounded the ‘peaceful’ civil rights movement • Illustrates a merger between Black self defense ‘gangs’ and a new black consciousness
Post Rebellion • Black Panther’s emerge in Los Angeles • Bunchy Carter is the local area leader • Other ‘club’ leaders begin to get socially active in the community • Growing ‘black power’ and ‘black consciousness’ movements spread • The FBI and LAPD begin to worry, set up surveillance, use ‘Cointelpro’ to undermine the groups • Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, two Panthers, were gunned down by rivals (US--a black consciousness group) • Evidence the FBI was promoting a conflict between these two groups
The Vacuum • With the demise of the Panther’s, the black communities were without much economic hope and little self sufficiency • In this vacuum, a few local high school kids started a ‘gang’ called the Avenue Boys that had the black panther philosophy in their mindset • In an attempt to mimic this poltiical message, a new group of kids emerged and called themselves Avenue Cribs or Baby Avenues • This was the origins of the ‘Crip’ gang • By the mid 1970s this was a city wide gang • 1972: the word ‘Crip’ is highly gang associated • A crip set on Piru street broke away after a series of hostilities. These breakaways became the ‘Bloods’
1980s and 1990s • 1980: 30,000 gang members estimated • Like the Capone days of prohibition, the use of illegal narcotics (cocaine and crack) make dealing a lucrative trade • The homicide rate increased every year during the 1980s • Causes major crackdown, the “War on Drugs” • Music enters the scene • NWA and Ice T emerge as prominent ‘gangster’ rap artists and the culture is dominated with violent images promoting the lifestyle