Free Republic

[NB: this is from March 19, 1996] Salim Muwakkil reports on 21st Century Vote, an organization created by former members of Chicago’s largest street gang, Gangster Disciples. Wallace “Gator” Bradley, a former gang member turned community leader, praises the group for offering a more productive way for disenfranchised youth to channel their energy and take part in the political process. However, the police and mainstream media claim that the organization is simply an illegitimate front allowing the Gangster Disciples to gain more influence. Bradley defends 21st Century Vote as a group sincerely working to bring a stop to gang violence...

The Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and Vice Lords were born decades ago in Chicago's most violent neighborhoods. Now, their gang graffiti is showing up 6,400 miles away in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods -- Iraq. Armored vehicles, concrete barricades and bathroom walls all have served as canvasses for their spray-painted gang art. At Camp Cedar II, about 185 miles southeast of Baghdad, a guard shack was recently defaced with "GDN" for Gangster Disciple Nation, along with the gang's six-pointed star and the word "Chitown," a soldier who photographed it said. The graffiti, captured on film by an Army...

Police bust members of 2-6 Vice Lords on north side Milwaukee police and federal officials announced this morning 21 arrests they said will “disrupt” havoc wreaked by the 2-6 Vice Lords, a north side gang. “They set out to remove a dangerous gang from the streets of Milwaukee, and they were quite successful,” said FBI Special Agent James Finch, whose agency worked with Milwaukee police and other investigators from local, state and federal agencies in the sweep. The gang, police said, ranged from N. 20th to N. 27th Streets, between W. Lisbon and W. North Avenues, and participated in drug...