Internal Gang Wars

Black gangs used to stick together, but ever since drugs flooded the ghetto, money destroyed those loyalties.

— Florida Made (@RichardMIATL) March 31, 2016

Bloods, Crips, Gangster Disciples & Vice Lords are some of the most (in)famous black gangs in the nation. All of these gangs were birthed out of the civil rights movement. Originally, these gangs were formed to protect their neighborhoods from police harassment, as well as harassment from whites. Gang leaders from each of these gangs formed their crews under the mandate that members stick together. There was no such thing as internal fighting between fellow gang members because the leaders would shut that down quick. Fast forward to the 80's, which was the time where the drug epidemic exploded. Drugs started flowing into the ghetto & that was a wrap. Traditional gang loyalties were put on the backburner for the almighty dollar. At the height of the crack era, dealers could make $10,000 a day, and that's a slow day. When gang members started getting big money from the drug trade, some members got greedy and wanted to dominate the drug trade. Many of the gangs started off as one, but certain sets wanted a piece of the drug trade so they branched off into their own enterprise. If a gang set owned a money-making block, the set(s) that weren't doing so well wanted to knock off the successful set and take over their booming block. The CIA-Contra controversy goes into detail how the CIA funneled drugs into inner-city Black America. If the CIA didn't funnel drugs into American inner cities, there wouldn't be gangs, which meant major cities wouldn't have logged thousands of murders annually because the gangs would have no way to make money.