EDUCATE YOURSELF Knowledge Is Power
GUNS AND THE BLACK MALE A Decades-Long Tragedy By Steve Woodhouse
When you think of Chicago, that Windy City off of Lake Michigan, America’s third largest at 2.7 million residents, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and Marshall Field’s may come immediately to mind. Still others may remember that Chi-Town was the epicenter of gang violence married to political and law enforcement corruption in the 1920s. The Thompson submachine gun, aka the Tommy gun or “Chicago typewriter,” perfected in the trenches of World War I, ruled the streets and racked up a Prohibition-era body count so awesome that it inspired the U.S. Treasury Department to form a special unit, led by a young Eliot Ness, to battle “Scarface” Al Capone and his hoods. These Untouchables, as the local press came to call them (for their alleged refusal to take bribes), had a mission that can best be summed up by Sean Connery, one of the stars in the 1987 film of the same name:
“ You wanna get Capone? Here’s how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get Capone!” TOP LEFT: Black Chicago youth brandish their guns. TOP RIGHT: Black Chicagoans protest to stop youth gun violence in their neighborhoods.
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CENTER RIGHT:“Scarface” Al Capone, prototype of the modern gangster BOTTOM RIGHT: John Gotti, a thug-life idol
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