Hoe Avenue peace meeting

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The Hoe Avenue peace meeting was an important gathering of New York street gangs in the early 1970s (December 7, 1971).

Gangs present at the Hoe Avenue peace meeting, (It was held in the boys club on Hoe Ave), with many city officials and Police present: The all-Black gang called the Black Pearls, wearing their huge, soft-brimmed purple-and-white hats; Savage Skulls wearing their sleeveless denim jackets with a skull and crossbones on the back; the Turbans with their black-and-gold jackets and black caps with gold pompoms; the Young Sinners, Javelins, Dutchmen, Magnificent Seven, Dirty Dozen, Liberated Panthers, and Peacemakers. Inside the power structure was much in evidence. Presidents, vice-presidents, and warlords sat on folding chairs in a circle in the middle of the club's gymnasium. Gang members took seats in the bleachers, while wives were made to wait outside the building in the cold. Only two females were permitted inside-the presidents of the all-girl gangs, the "Alley Cats" and the "Savage Sisters"-and their folding chairs were placed in the last/fourth row, behind those of the warlords. Also, there were Seven Immortals, Black Spades (the backs of their jackets were decorated with a huge black spade pierced in dead center by a pair of crossed knives. [1] The gangs that had had an arrest for murder were held in disrepute. Source: The Compound, Chap. 5, pp. 88-89. At this first Brotherhood ("Brothers of the Ghetto," according to Yellow Benjy) meeting, the Flying Dutchmen were the only white gang represented, this according to one poster at the "NYC Street Gang, 1960, 1970 and 1980" [2] The gangs that sponsored it were part of "The Brotherhood," later to be known as "The Family." It eventually spread to Brooklyn. For one reason the lead gangs also had chapters/divisions in Brooklyn. See Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings, by Peter Schneider, chapter 8.

Leaders and members from about 20 gangs from all over the Bronx gathered in the gym of the Boys' Club of America chapter on Hoe Avenue--neutral territory. To draw up a peace treaty in honor of "Brother Sunshine" [Gale, The Compounds' name for a murdered vice prez Black Benjie, of the Ghetto Brothers]. And to guarantee that it would be nonviolent, it was arranged to have a member of the Turbans gang to take position, with a rifle, on a rooftop across the street from the Boys' Club on the day of the meeting. Sources: The Compound, p. 88; and Vampires, last chapter (Posted in [3].

One of the YSA's Bronx gang crisis squad, Eddie Vincente, 27, "Spanish Eddie" (a veteran of the 1950's Bronx street gangs), began working on the grandiose notion of getting every major gang in the Bronx to sign an intergang treaty and alliance. A successor to the Brotherhood--This giant alliance would be called "The Family," and every gang would become a division in the larger gang. The idea had just enough vision in it for gang leaders to be interested in its possibilities. And Spanish Eddie felt that once unified under a single name, the gangs could do virtually anything, if someone provided them with the right kind of social vision. Even the police admitted to as many as 10,000 gang members in the Bronx alone. (Reaper, p. 93). Spanish Eddie signed on 68 gangs to the coalition/treaty before he and 10 other crisis squad members were suddenly transferred from the Bronx and reassigned to Brooklyn. Even so he continued to work on the Brotherhood Family in his spare time. It was organized under the auspices of the Ghetto Brothers after one of their members, 25 year-old Cornelly "Black Benjie" Benjamin, was killed trying to stop a gang fight. (Reaper, pp. 96, 93; Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings, p. 243). (Posted in [4].

"Gangs realized that they could have more influence over policymakers if they organized. A group of five gangs, known as the Brotherhood, negotiated peace treaties with other gangs and met with the Bronx borough president's office to acquire a site for a clubhouse. They proposed to run a high school equivalency program and required that gangs affiliated with them work for the improvement of their communities." Source: Schneider, Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings, Chap. 8, p. 243.

In 1972, the Black and Puerto Rican gangs in the Bronx were the Savage Skulls, Black Assassins, Ghetto Brothers, Reapers, Immortals, Young Sinners, Savage Nomads, Mongols and (Black) Spades. Source: Book Review: Brooklyn Kings..., by Martin Dixon.