When I walked with DC gangsters

When I walked with the DC street gangsters


When I walked on Mt. Pleasant and through Adams Morgan and around Columbia Heights, the junkies scared me; the hustlers stood tall, the alcoholics drank from brown paper bags and smiled at me.

When I remember the Mt. Pleasant hustlers, and Euclid street hustlers and Clifton Terrace and Fourteen street, I remember a gritty, broken glass filled, urine stench and rat filled neighborhood of political neglect and bitter enemies, block by block.

Kenyon Street had hate for Irving Street and Hobart Street had hate for Columbia road, and R Street and S were known as down the hill. I was from up the hill and so I was better off than the band of young gangsters on 11th street and that pugnacious crew of thieves and pickpockets from Ledroit Park. Howard University students would get robed on the regular, because they didn’t understand the avenue. And then I heard gun shots, that I used to think were firecrackers, every Friday night.

So that’s were I learned what a heroin junkie looks like when he needs a fix, on the streets of Shaw, Mt. Pleasant, Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan. When southwest was destroyed, not everybody headed to southeast as is popular thought. A hell of a whole lot of them ended up right uptown. Not bourgie uptown, but dirt uptown. Like Shaw, and Columbia Heights and old raggedy Mt. Pleasant and Adams Morgan. A lot of folks don’t know that Adams Morgan gets its name from the two used to be segregated schools. Adams the white school located on the south end and Morgan, and the original sleepy hollow west end gangsters, whose streets were Corcoran, Seaton, kalorama road and Euclid, adjacent to the kalorama skating rink.

And when I ventured off the turf, when I met crews from further uptown, they looked me in my eyes and they knew I knew. I didn’t have to act like I knew. I had my own style, my own sense of whom I was, where I was going, I knew bullets had no name. So when I met gangsters from Petworth, they showed respect and embraced me and protected me from ill people and ill crews. When I met gangsters from Taylor Street and Delafield Street they had their own internal squabbles, but I stepped around that. The Decatur street gang carried themselves as hard scrabble, but them to be but mere friends and partners. I met crews and sets from Bright wood and Manor Park. They held down fort on streets like Rittenhouse and the most well known, Kennedy. When I moved to Brightwood Park, I knew Riggs Park and Michigan were always beefing. I knew north Michigan Park was known for athletes. And Brookland and Woodridge were quiet havens of well kept families and well kept homes. But you didn’t step to 12th and Hamlin; you didn’t step to hard at Edgewood Terrace, that’s right round the corner where I fell for a little honey on Franklin Street.

And when I hung with brothers from Riggs, from Michigan, from Woodridge and from Edgewood they treated me with respect and admiration, they knew from where I came and I never worried about beefs. Because they accepted me as I was. When I ran across southeast dudes, it was all about what part of southeast. But I was befriended by the dudes who went to our lady queen of peace, and Holy Comforter. Southeast was a beast. They had plenty of good guys in southeast. Plenty of hippies and coolies. My best friend from southeast was shot and killed right where he grew up. Right in woodland. Woodland and Fairlawn carried southeast. I used to party until five o’clock in the morning in congress heights, on the southeast and southwest border by Bolling air force base.

You came into valley green and out. I played basketball with my cousin in Barry farms until three in the morning. Sometimes guys would give you that infamous southeast grit down their, but as long as you respected them and let them know you were a visitor, their was no beef. We played ball and we squashed dumbshit. It was players honor. Now, their were plenty of rumbles with southeast. That’s what they lived on more than the gangsters I knew from uptown. They lived to prove themselves, because a hell of a lot of them was good kids looking for bad. Southeast dudes liked to go to other neighborhoods and play rough and tough and then get back to southeast and get killed. It would happen all the time, if they moved to any other part of town, and suburban Maryland. Often these dudes would go right back to good hope road, Stanton road, Alabama avenue, wheeler road, southern avenue and get killed. You can still read about this shit in the newspaper today. But southeast is deceptive. Some brilliant and well kept kids lived off Branch Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue extended. I had a girlfriend off Pennsylvania Avenue and she was as refined as any girl I knew from uptown. But she had that southeast shit in her too. Her parents were middle to upper middle class, but she had to deal with highland niggers. This is the best southeast story I can remember. I remember going to a party off of Branch Avenue. A very clean and well kept part of southeast. A lot of middle class dudes, but they had plenty of moxie. We came in about four cars from uptown, looking very much the part of uptowners. I was having a good time, all of sudden I heard the sounds of fists and body punches and these two dudes got the shit beat out of them in this elaborate branch avenue home. And I heard one of the dudes who were administering the ass whipping, “these poor motherfuckers coming up here to fuck up our party, send their ass back down Minnesota Avenue”. I had a lot of affection for southeast, my uncle lived their for thirty-five years, he had his home right their off Malcolm X avenue, around the corner from number eleven boys club. I hung with a crazy dude from Linda Pollin apartments, we were bitter rivals. My favorite go-go band was from southeast, Rare Essence. I never understood all the hate they had for one another out their. It was different from uptown. We all knew one another uptown. Or knew of one another. Their it was complete hate from neighborhood to neighborhood. Oh, and I don’t consider Capitol Hill to be a part of “The southeast beasts”.

What’s left are the nomads turfs, so hardcore that the only reason your creeping around here is your lost or you got family or you need street narcotics or whores. Sir sum Corda, I had a great friend who grew up their when it was peaceful. It’s the equivalent of Iraq today. Trinidad, I never even dated a girl over their. It was be shot or robbed over their, especially if you came from northwest, like I did. All they knew over their was war. Kenilthworth in its hey-day was outlaw city. Simple City, you had to be packing. And certified nuts lived over in Lincoln Heights and Benning road. These dudes were all country, all uncouth over their. The sharpest dudes for over their were the sheriff road boys going into Maryland, that mob with ties to Division avenue and “the shrimp boat”, the neighborhood landmark.


Honorable mention is all the Maryland bama squabbles. Like the most well known is Kentland versus Palmer Park, Suitland and Temple Hills, Langley Park, just by itself.
Forestville and Oxon Hill, Marlboro Pike and Walker Mill road. Silver Spring and Takoma Park.
Just Maryland boys settling beefs with DC extended or internal beefs that had grown over like weeds in the heat of the summer. You can read about that shit in the paper everyday. Some Maryland boys shot up in DC or some DC boys shot up in Cap-pistol heights, some robbery gone wrong in Shootland, some body crossed somebody or missed somebody in Glassmanor and District Heights. Somebody said the wrong thing, somebody owed somebody some money, somebody killed somebody’s family member and the street code over ruled the judicial system. Somebody was showboating in the club, somebody said something to somebody and somebody finished it.
Maryland squabbles and beefs. Sometimes those beefs go interstate or tristate and revolve into rivalries like the Alexandria, VA boys and the Oxon Hill crew’s beefs from years back.

Beefing is a legendary mark of bamafication. Beefing is the end result of trying to maintain some reputation, or establish some reputation or pretending that you’re down with the crew or know your way around. When you don’t know. Sometimes guys pretend like their down and they really don’t have an idea. Bamafication is when bama’s, those that are not hip, have no reputation, don’t have any moxie or couth, try desperately to defend their honor. Usually it’s over drugs, girls, cars, jewelry, family name, street credit, or neighborhood pride. Sticks up boys are the exception. They flat out have no connection, don’t want a connection, they steal from small hustlers, major players and organizations. In the end stick up boys end up dead. Beefing also turns out to be personal vendettas from some one stepping on the wrong family, somebody finally figuring out who did who to who and paying it back. But in the end there is never, ever any getting back. Brothers will die, Uncles will die, cousins will die and best friends will die. And the bullshit memories will linger. When you see graffiti like “R.I.P pee wee”, “we love you Boo”, “Peaches and friends loved you to”, tee shirts and photographs, pictures and stuffed animals and candles burning. Beefing and all its derivatives don’t play out like the movies. No matter what city, what town, what state. It’s all personal. And gang affiliation is but a fixture on a landscape of rivalries and animosities that sometimes date themselves prehistoric. Beefing leads to inner city drama, which date some 40 years. At the Go-Go, at the basketball game, at the corner store, in the car in the neighborhood, at grandma’s house, in the yard, on the corner, at the playground, in the alley, on the bus, at the metro station, when ever one set’s an enemy tribe. Amazingly post MTV raps and Hip Hop culture has made this attitude suburban acclimation or rigueur for the suburban gangsters 10 to 15 miles outside DC and Baltimore. It leads to drag racing and Friday night brawls and tough guy join my gang rites. The suburban kids act out this shit, while inner city kids are scared to death and just want to be able to get through the day without having some friend killed, mama crying, daddy holding on if he’s their at all. It’s everyday, day to day for the city kid, while the suburbs want to be gangster until the realization hits some upper middle class sensibilities. Suburban, hard core doesn’t count. The Seat Pleasants and Glass manors and Langley Parks are basically DC drama extensions.

The best way to survive this crap is to be you at all costs. Parents have to be strong and rigid. Folks have to set expectations early. Dude might be six-five and 250 pounds and sixteen; he’s still a young man trying to learn his way around. He may be the shortest dude or the tallest dude; he still needs some help to know his way around. Gangs and all their drama can be shut down, but it takes community stepping up and showing the way. Many communities already have the seeds of good intentions within them, but sometimes you need youth outreach and career criminal outreach to be lit up like a Christmas tree. A lot of these cats can’t read or write, and some are so smart and forthright that all they need is a nudge and a push. Each one must teach one. Churches need to combine efforts through interfaith and become less political and open its doors. The contractor community must be willing to open up its doors and put something’s together other than a job. Extend a hand not a hand out. Government programs, that work need to be rewarded, like job core and seed programs. It’s amazing but the answers and solutions are all within our reach, we can begin to reconstruct communities that all but live like the old Western ghost towns. Bars on windows. No one out after dark, just street lights and criminal minds and criminal plans and conspiracies.