Among the phenomena of the 1950s was the rise
of the violent urban gangs with their freewheeling, sometimes lethal
“rumbles” in protection of their “turf.” By the mid-'60s, gangs seemed
to be on the wane, their vital energies either drawn into the protest
movements of that era or sapped by the burgeoning drug culture. Now in several of America's largest cities, the gangs are back—and with
some ominous differences. Older, better armed, more sophisticated, the
gangs today operate in all too deadly earnest. New York City has had 27
gang-related murders reported this year—ten of them in the seething
South Bronx, where 877 gang arrests have taken place in 1973. In Chicago
the gangs have largely graduated to big-time crime as profiteers in guns,
extortion and gambling. Los Angeles has nearly 200 gangs, more than 40
of which are black or Chicano. Their clashes have caused 16 deaths this year. Nowhere are the new gangs more virulently active than in Philadelphia,
where over half of all violent crime in the city is committed by
juveniles; in the past five years 191 youngsters have died in gang wars
and gang-related assassinations. TIME Correspondent Barrett Seaman
spent some time on the streets of the City of Brotherly Love and sent
this report: In Philadelphia, a gang is called a “corner,” and a gang
leader is a “runner” or a “checkholder.” Smokey,
aged 19, dressed in a flaming red shirt and matching narrow-brimmed
hat, is the runner of the Montgomery corner, and he is expecting
trouble from the Norris Avenue corner, whose turf is just across Berks
Street. “I keep everybody together, plan any action we might
take,” he explains coolly. Just then a corner member, who looks
to be no more than nine or ten, points a finger and yells: “Three
dudes coming up. Looks like warrin' time.” As the three enemy
youngsters cross into no man's land, twelve of Smokey's gang set off
at a run to intercept them. No weapons are visible yet, but the mood is
ugly. Fortunately, a cruising police car happens by before the two
groups collide, and the antagonists melt into studied casual poses.
“They know there's gonna be trouble,” observes a Montgomery. “Norris
is gonna move on us tonight, and the Man's got the word.” The Montgomerys and the Norrises are among the estimated 100 to 200
gangs that roam the black neighborhoods of West and North Philadelphia.
Most of the gangs have memberships of no more than 30 or 40 teenagers,
and in some cases their territory is quite literally no more than a
corner or a block at best. The rules of sovereignty—and survival—are
strict. The difference between life and death can often depend on
whether a boy walks on one side of a street or the other. Forays by an
individual or a group into the territory of another gang are a
justifiable cause for all out combat. The slightest provocation—a
little back talk in a school corridor, a random surreptitious glance at
the “sister” of another corner, a taunting gesture from a
block's distance—can plunge corners into a war that may last for two
or three years.
