Gang History - Dark American History

Stuffed animals study a red-string map titled Chicago Hub, The Geography of Gangs.

Gang History

Chicago Gangs: America's Gang Capital

The complete history of Chicago's gang wars — Gangster Disciples Vice Lords Black P Stones Latin Kings Folk Nation People Nation and drill music.

A teddy bear detective watches a drill music video on a TV in a dim office.

Gang History

Chief Keef and Drill Music: When Chicago's Violence Got a Soundtrack

Chief Keef recorded "I Don't Like" on house arrest at 16 in a South Side basement — by spring Kanye had remixed it and drill music had named a global genre.

A teddy bear detective at a chalkboard diagramming Chicago's gang alliance system.

Gang History

Folk Nation vs People Nation: Chicago's Gang Alliance System

Chicago's gang map has two sides, and neither is a gang. How a prison-yard arrangement in the late 1970s became the way a whole city sorted its street organizations.

Dark documentary photo of an empty place tied to The Latin Kings in Chicago; no people, no text.

Gang History

The Latin Kings in Chicago: How a Humboldt Park Gang Became a Nation

Puerto Rican kids pushed from block to block by urban renewal picked a name that said what the city wouldn't: we are kings here. Seven decades later the crown is still on the walls.

Comic page on the Vice Lords: 1950s St. Charles origins, federal grants, and fragmentation panels.

Gang History

The Vice Lords: Chicago's Oldest Street Gang

Teenagers in a reform school started it. A few years later it had a nonprofit charter, an ice cream parlor and a Rockefeller grant. Then the city declared war on gangs, and the experiment was over.

Gang History

The Black P Stones: From Community Group to Criminal Enterprise

Jeff Fort turned the Blackstone Rangers from a War on Poverty grant recipient into a gang convicted of negotiating terrorist attacks with Muammar Gaddafi's Libya.

Comic panels on Larry Hoover's Gangster Disciples, run as a hierarchy from inside prison.

Gang History

The Gangster Disciples: Larry Hoover's Empire

A gang leader ran a corporation from a prison cell, tried to turn it into a political machine, and watched the federal government choose to crush it instead. Then his sentence outlived his power.

A teddy bear detective's collage on LA gangs with maps, LAPD photos, and South Central scenes.

Gang History

LA Gangs: The War That Defined a City

The complete history of the Crips Bloods Tookie Williams the 1992 truce and Suge Knight — the gang war that shaped South Central Los Angeles.

A teddy bear with vinyl records under a red sign reading Suge Knight and Death Row Records.

Gang History

Suge Knight and Death Row Records: Where Gangbanging Met the Music Industry

A former defensive end turned a reputation for menace into the hottest label in rap. Then Tupac was shot in the passenger seat of his BMW, and it took nearly 30 years for a jury to name anyone responsible.

A teddy bear detective views a screen of a peace handshake; a caption reads Rodney King Truce.

Gang History

Rodney King and the Gang Truce That Almost Worked

The Watts gang truce was signed three days before the Rodney King verdict — and cut gang homicides 44 percent before the city refused to fund what peace required.

Panels on Tookie Williams: Crips founder, prison books, and a death row cell.

Gang History

Tookie Williams: Crip Founder Death Row Author Executed

Tookie Williams co-founded the Crips at 17 spent 24 years on death row writing children's books against gang violence and was executed in 2005 maintaining his innocence.

Dark documentary photo of an empty place tied to The Crip-Blood War; no people, no text.

Gang History

The Crip-Blood War: How a 1970s Rivalry Became Decades of Killing

It started with a few neighborhood crews deciding they were tired of being pushed around. It became a war with no front line, no generals and no peace treaty that lasted.