Street Gangs: A Secret History

Street gangs, to paraphrase the illustrious H. Rap Brown, are as American as cherry pie, a sad fact that this eminently watchable feature from the History Channel's Time Machine series makes abundantly clear. In tracing urban street gangs from their 19th century roots in orphanages and on mean streets up to the current celebrated warfare between Crips, Bloods and associates, familiar patterns emerge. Wave after wave of various newly arrived ethnic groups' assimilation into American society included a period of being shut out of the mainstream economy, and, predictably, some of these new Americans turned to underworld pursuits. Add in the always popular provocation of turf defense, and the result is perpetual gang activity by a rotating multicultural mélange of identifiable groups. Not only is today's gang activity not the discrete result of inner-city fascination with crack, had the celebrated Irish Five Points Gang and their fellow travelers in the Tammany Hall political elite had access to crack they might well have exploited it commercially, too. Instead they fomented a post-Civil War gang war that festered until a protracted gunfight on New York's Lower East Side in 1903 brought the situation to the boiling point. Of course, then as now, the final solution to the street gang problem proved elusive. Combining archival clips and stills with contemporary interviews, Street Gangs: A Secret History is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Tribby)