Gang Youths Get Farrakhan Peace Message

The youths said they had heard the word in the schoolyard and at the swap meet, on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles and from television sets tuned to the evening news:

The Nation of Islam had invited 900 gang leaders to the Bonaventure downtown Sunday for what representatives said would be a private meeting between them and the group’s controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan.

But in the end, it wasn’t private. And the number of gang youths who heard the minister’s fiery words appeared to be far fewer than 900.

However, a smattering of gang members--young and old, Blood and Crip--did take seats among a the nearly 6,000 people who gathered in three hotel ballrooms to hear Farrakhan’s message of brotherhood and peace, in person or on closed-circuit television.

They did not seem to mind the news cameras, and the attention, the questions thrown at them by reporters and all the commotion in the crowd. They wanted to hear Farrakhan, they explained, and they did not have to be alone with him to understand him.

“It can be about gangs, about blacks,” said one member of the Bloods. “Anything he’s got to say, I want to hear.”

‘Stop the Killing’

The refrain of Farrakhan’s speech was “stop the killing,” the theme of a day dedicated by community organizers and the Nation of Islam to stopping the violence gripping many parts of Los Angeles and the black community.

“We who have been victims in America because we are the wrong color are now victimizing each other because we wear the wrong colors,” said Farrakhan, blaming gang violence on the breakdown of the family and economic discrimination against blacks. “Something is wrong.”

The speech, delivered by a man who has been more often labeled a rabble-rouser than a peacemaker, had been hailed by many community leaders as a noble and necessary step in African Americans’ efforts to retake their communities.

But others had expressed doubt that Farrakhan, or anyone else, could draw hundreds of gang members with the mere lure of a speech. And they doubted that those who did come would have much influence on other gang bangers.

For those on the run from a rival, said V.G. Guinses, who works with many gang members, “The Bonaventure is a long way from home.”

Influence Is Limited

And added a former Crip who did not hear the speech, even if those listening to Farrakhan were “old gangsters” with reputations that commanded respect, “you can’t tell the next man how to live his life because Farrakhan said it. I have a lot of influence in my old neighborhood, but I can’t say ‘this is what we’re going to do.’ You might find me face down somewhere in Playa del Rey.”

But according to one 20-year-old Blood, who called himself Dray, Farrakhan’s very name commands respect. And if the minister’s words could change the attitude of just one of his homeboys, he said, it would be a good start.

“The Scripture says we war not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers,” Farrakhan said to thunderous applause. “I did not come here to exacerbate the problem. I came to shed some light on the problem (and show) that we have no justifiable reason to kill one another.”

Whether Farrakhan’s message would get through, said gang members gathered there, remained to be seen. After all, there had been many truces and treaties, summits and lectures, and none had stemmed the tide of violence. There were at least three gang-related killings in the Los Angeles area over the weekend.

But there was at least one man at the Bonaventure who hoped this time it would be different.

“I just had a brother killed a couple weeks ago in a drive-by shooting,” said Chris Greer, 26. “The bullet came right through the front door” of the barber shop where they worked, he said.

Another of his brothers was stabbed to death in 1982, also by gang members and now he has only one brother left.

“It’s too much,” he said. “I worry every day.”