THE ALMIGHTY BLACK P STONE NATION

Evenhanded account of a legendary Chicago street gang.

Chicago Public Radio reporter Moore (co-author: Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation, 2006) and Williams (Sociology/Northeastern Illinois Univ.) began this collaboration “out of sheer curiosity” about the storied Blackstone Rangers, which evolved into the titular “nation” and then the Islamist El Rukns. Scant history existed of the gang, which began in the 1960s in the impoverished Woodlawn neighborhood. By the ’80s, they were pursued by authorities for conspiring with Libya to commit terrorism. The authors create a valuable panorama of urban decline, demonstrating how the well-intentioned “Great Society” programs of the ’60s were replaced by punitive policies that both demonized and isolated African-American males. The narrative revolves around Rangers co-founder Jeff Fort, a fascinatingly contradictory individual described as compassionate, ruthless and shrewd. Early on, his innovation was to work with older criminals while insisting that all other South Side youth gangs form an allegiance with the Rangers. While the group expanded, they benefited from alliances with well-intentioned churches and the social services spurred by Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” Predictably, this enraged the Chicago police and the FBI, who by 1968 were convinced the Rangers would be the armed vanguard of revolutionary terrorism. When Fort was released from federal prison in 1976, he took his gang in an unexpected direction. Developing an interest in the Moorish Temple of Science movement, he renamed the group “El Rukns.” However, they remained involved in drug dealing, and law enforcement remained predictably hostile, leading to Fort’s notorious terror indictment (and a life sentence). Although documentation of the gang’s audacious criminal brutality remains blurry, this is a well-executed narrative that clarifies little-understood elements of both the War on Terror and the violence and isolation still haunting black America.

A powerful exposé of disturbing realities underlying enduringly misunderstood urban legends.