See also
New York Cityportal - Benjamin Melendez
- Watts Truce
- Rubble Kings - 2015 documentary that depicts events preceding and following the Hoe Avenue peace meeting
The Hoe Avenue peace meeting was an important gathering of gangs that took place in the Bronx, New York City, on December 8, 1971. [1] [2] [3] It was called to propose a general truce and an unprecedented inter-gang alliance. The impetus for the meeting was the murder of "Black Benjie", a peace keeper of the Ghetto Brothers. While no lasting peace was ever established, a subsequent negotiation established a procedure for dealing with conflicts to avoid street warfare. The meeting is notable as one of the first attempts by street organizations to broker a truce between groups of different ethnic backgrounds.
After the death of "Black Benjie," a member of the Ghetto Brothers who turned community activist, a peace treaty meeting was organized among the South Bronx gangs. The gangs in attendance that are most frequently mentioned include the Black Spades, Ghetto Brothers, Savage Skulls, Turbans, and Seven Immortals. This historic treaty among South Bronx gangs lasted until the crack cocaine wars erupted during the early 1980s.
Some of the Gangs that attended the Hoe Avenue peace treaty meeting:
The meeting was held at the Boys Club on Hoe Avenue in the Bronx, with dozens of street organizations and many city officials and police present. Attendants included the Black Pearls, Savage Skulls, Turbans, Young Sinners, Royal Javelins, Dutchmen, Magnificent Seven, Dirty Dozens, Liberated Panthers, Black Spades, Seven Immortals, Latin Spades, Peacemakers, and Ghetto Brothers. [4] The peace meeting was organized by the Ghetto Brothers after one of their members, 25-year-old Cornell "Black Benjie" Benjamin, was killed trying to stop a gang fight. [5] [6] The objective was to draw up a peace treaty in honor of "Black Benjie", who had been the designated peacemaker of the Ghetto Brothers.
To help ensure 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. [7] Inside, the power structure was 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. Only two women 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. [8]
The peace meeting appears in Flyin' Cut Sleeves, a documentary film by Rita Fecher and Henry Chalfant. [9]
One of the Youth Services Agency's Bronx gang crisis squad, 27-year-old Eduardo Vincenti, "Spanish Eddie" (a veteran of the 1950s Bronx street gangs), began working on the grandiose notion of getting every major gang in the Bronx to sign an intergang treaty and alliance. [10] 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. Vincenti 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. The police admitted to the existence of as many as 10,000 gang members in the Bronx alone. [11]
Vincenti 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, where he was shot in the face trying to prevent a gun battle in the West Farms neighborhood. [4] Vincenti survived to continue work on the Brotherhood Family in his spare time. Bronx Squad Crisis members believed the shooting was orchestrated in response to his attempts to broker a treaty. [4]
In 2011, former members of the Ghetto Brothers and Black Panthers spoke to the New York Daily News in advance of a planned commemoration scheduled to take place at the Bronx River Art Center at 305 East 140th Street. Joseph Mpa of the Black Panthers stated that the truce itself played a role in the rise of hip hop culture since it permitted greater ease of travel between neighborhoods without fear of reprisals for crossing gang boundaries. [3]
New York Cityportal 
The Universal Zulu Nation is an international hip hop awareness group formed by and formerly led by hip hop artist Afrika Bambaataa.
The Ghetto Brothers were a gang and music group founded in New York City's South Bronx in the late 1960s with the motivation to uplift young Latino and Black men in their community.
Benjamin Melendez was best known for brokering the gang truce in the Bronx and Harlem in 1971. At that time, he was President of the Ghetto Brothers, a mainly ethnically Puerto Rican South Bronx gang, and lead vocalist of a musical group also known as the Ghetto Brothers.
Rostam or Rustam is a legendary hero in Persian mythology, the son of Zāl and Rudaba, whose life and work was immortalized by the 10th-century Persian poet Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh, or Epic of Kings, which contains pre-Islamic Iranian folklore and history. However, the roots of the narrative date much earlier.
The Black Spades were a mostly African-American street gang which started in the Bronx during the late 1960s and gained popularity in the 1970s. The gang began to spread from the Bronx to Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Rochelle, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut by the late 1980s. During this period Latino and white members were more common. The Black Spades have made a comeback in 2019 with more members joining. They are now TBS New Direction, a community service group championing anti-violence initiatives and providing food distribution for the food insecure.
The Watts truce was a 1992 peace agreement among rival street gangs in Los Angeles, California, declared in the neighborhood of Watts. The truce was reached just days before the 1992 Los Angeles riots and, although not universally adhered to, was a major factor in the decline of street violence in the city between the 1990s and 2010s.
Rambo: The Force of Freedom is a 1986 American animated series based on the character of John Rambo from David Morrell's book First Blood and the subsequent films First Blood (1982) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985). This series was adapted for television by story editor/head writer Michael Chain and also spawned a toy line.
The Warriors is a novel written by Sol Yurick and illustrated by Frank Modell in 1965. In 1979, it was adapted into the film of the same name. Compared to the film, the novel takes a closer look at the concepts of sexuality, reputation, family, and survival.
Lance Taylor, also known as Afrika Bambaataa, is an American DJ, rapper, and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of Hip Hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.
The Maniac Latin Disciples Nation is a Hispanic street gang in Chicago and the largest in the Folks Nation alliance. Originally known as the Latin Scorpions, the gang was founded by Albert "Hitler" Hernandez and other Puerto Rican teenagers in the Humboldt Park community in approximately 1966. They were influential in the culture and history of gangs in Humboldt Park, and continue to be active there today.
Crips and Bloods: Made in America is a 2008 documentary by Stacy Peralta that examines the rise of the Crips and Bloods, prominent gangs in America who have been at war with each other. The documentary focuses on the external factors that caused African-American youth to turn to gangs and questions the political and law enforcement response to the rise of gang culture.
Imam Mujahid Abdul-Karim is an African-American convert to Islam, who is best known for his involvement and "spearheading" of the April 26, 1992 Watts Gang Truce between the four influential rival gangs— Watts Hacienda Village Bloods, Grape Street Watts Crips, Bounty Hunter Watts Bloods, and PJ Watts Crips. He is imam of Masjid Al Rasul mosque in Watts, Los Angeles and the leader of The Imam Mahdi Movement.
Rubble Kings is a 2015 documentary film directed by Shan Nicholson that depicts gang violence in The Bronx in the 1970s, specifically the events leading up to and following the Hoe Avenue peace meeting.
The Savage Skulls are a mostly Puerto Rican and African American street gang started in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx during the late 1960s, gaining popularity in the 1970s. The gang declared war on the drug dealers operating in the Hunts Point area in the early 1970s, and was also involved in a number of running battles with rival gangs, including the Seven Immortals, Savage Nomads, and Dirty Dozen.
The Savage Nomads were a mostly Puerto Rican and African American street gang started in the South Bronx area of The Bronx, New York during the late 1960s, gaining popularity in the 1970s. The gang was involved in a number of running battles with rival gangs Seven Immortals, Savage Skulls, and the Dirty Dozen. The Savage Nomads were alleged to be involved in numerous small crime activities in the New York City area.
