In the vibrant country of the United States, there are always cities that attract attention and talk about for some unique reasons. Chicago is one of them. Nestled on the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan and known as the "City of America's Windmills," this metropolis stands proudly in the vast wilderness of Illinois and has become a major city in the Midwest of the United States.
When it comes to Chicago, in addition to its glorious modern urban style, many people will also think of a slightly darker word - "gangster". Chicago was once the center of modern gang activity, and countless mafia bigwigs roamed and made a name for themselves here. So, how did this small city, which was originally just an obscurity, step by step into darkness and become an important stronghold of gangsters in the 20th century?
Illinois has its ups and downs
To understand Chicago's gangster saga, we have to start with Illinois. As the "brown belt" of the Midwest, Illinois began to rise rapidly in the second half of the 19th century as a wealthy state.
On October 16, 1858, at a Republican rally in Springfield, Illinois, a tall lawyer was elected as the party's candidate for president. He was Abraham Lincoln, who would go on to become one of the most famous presidents in American history.
Under Lincoln's leadership, the Northern Union successfully defeated the rebels in the South and defended the unity of the United States of America. However, the war has taken a huge toll on the country. In order to rebuild the homeland and regain its vitality as soon as possible, President Lincoln enacted the Department of the Interior Act in 1861 to speed up the development of the western region.
Illinois, as an important city, quickly seized this historic opportunity. In the second half of the 19th century, a large influx of European immigrants into Illinois brought life to the land. Most of these outsiders possessed the technology needed for an industrialized society, and some brought with them the traditions of their own countries, such as the "mafia" culture that was introduced to the United States by Italian immigrants.
Illinois' economy is booming, especially its industry. By the end of the 19th century, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia had become the three largest industrial cities in the United States. In 1880, Chicago, Illinois, alone was home to one-third of the country's railroad lines, factories and chimneys, making it the "largest city in the West."
100-year-old flying fox
Coincidentally, it was during this period that Chicago began its legendary path. What started as a small Indian village grew into a small town, and by the late 19th century, Chicago was truly on its way.
In 1871, a terrible fire nearly flattened Chicago, but the city was like an immortal phoenix that rose to its knees again. In 1893, the success of the World's Fair made Chicago famous. At the beginning of the 20th century, Chicago was growing like a fox flying for a thousand miles, almost anything.
In 1909, Chicago became the second city in the United States with a population of more than one million (after New York). In the 1920s, the city showed unprecedented prosperity, not only the traditional industries such as industry and finance flourished, but also culture, art, and sports.
Interestingly, in contrast to other developments in Chicago, this period also saw the rise of the mafia. The mafia culture brought by immigrants from Italy took root here, and gradually developed its own unique gang force.
Many of the later notorious mafia bigwigs came from this period, such as the infamous "Chicago Coolers", Mike Murphy, Jack Guzik, and others. They continue to accumulate power through illegal gun trafficking, smuggling, gambling, drug trafficking and other means, and have become an uncontrollable undercurrent in the Chicago underworld.
In particular, from 1920 to 1933, during the period when the National Prohibition was in effect. In order to make money in the dark, the major mafia families launched a fierce turf war, and the scene was quite cruel and tragic.
During that period, people were attacked in the streets almost every other week, and there were massacres on both sides, most notably the "Valentine's Day Massacre" on February 14, 1929. In front of innocent passers-by, the Arkapone family's men machine-gunned seven members of the rival family, leaving their bloody corpses scattered like weeds in the streets.
North-South split
While gangs are thriving in downtown Chicago, another force is also growing.
In the first half of the 20th century, large numbers of blacks poured into the suburbs of Chicago from the southern United States, leading to racial segregation in the north and south of the city. The black population is concentrated in the south, while the white majority is in the north. As time passed, this North-South split intensified.
Although the northern region is economically prosperous, the affluent life of whites is based on the sacrifice of blacks in the southern part of the city. It is home to a concentration of slums in Chicago, with an extremely poor environment and poor educational resources, and has to rely on the government to provide cheap public housing ("public housing"). The quality of these public housing is worrying and the environment is very poor, but for poor black families, it is a desperate choice.
It is worth mentioning that the design of public housing at that time had serious flaws, such as non-solid partition walls and criss-crossing public passages, which inadvertently left room for gang activities in the future. The affluent neighborhood is just one street away from the slums, and Chicago's north-south divide is becoming more and more pronounced.
It was in this environment of polarization between the North and the South, and the disparity between the rich and the poor, that Chicago's modern gangsters began to brew and eventually take shape. Homeless and poorly educated black youths have no choice but to join street crime gangs and start a long career as a gangster.
Initially, black gangs went toe-to-toe with other gangs of Italian descent. But later, a black gangster named Larry Hofer actually used his extraordinary wisdom and cunning to incorporate Chicago's large and small gangsters into his banner and establish the infamous "nation-state".
Larry Hofer is arguably the epitome of modern gangster development in Chicago. Born into a shattered black family, he grew up in public housing and began working on the streets at the age of 12. At the age of 23, he merged several small gangs to form the "Black Street Gang", which soon expanded into the largest gang in Chicago.
In 1973, Larry was sentenced to 150 years in prison for murder and was imprisoned in Chicago, but this did not stop his gangster career, but instead allowed him to expand his rule to other states. The point is that while in prison, Larry called on gangs of all ethnic groups to join his banner, integrating different gangs such as blacks, whites, and Latinas into a huge "nation-state" criminal syndicate. He made it a rule that all gangs must hand over 70 percent of the profits from drug sales as "protection money", and in return, the syndicate would provide funds to support the lives of grassroots members.
Gangster Wars
In doing so, Larry won the hearts of Chicago's big and small gangsters. At the same time, police crackdowns have been frustrated for a simple reason: public housing is like a small castle, with gangster eyes inside and out, which cannot be completely destroyed unless heavy troops are used. To make matters worse, with the decline of Chicago's industry, unemployed blacks joined the gang en masse, creating a vicious circle.
Dominating the world is not an easy task. Just when the "nation-state" was at its peak, it launched a bloody contest to the death with its rivals, the "". The two sides engaged in gang warfare over the seizure of the drug trade territory, and the guns and bloodshed continued to occur in Chicago's Midtown District.
On an ordinary day in 1992, a 7-year-old boy was on his way to school when he was accidentally affected by the "nation-state" and the "gang-state". This incident shocked the whole United States, and public opinion urged the Chicago government to stop the violence and control the chaos, so the Chicago police once again struck hard and launched a large-scale gun arrest operation codenamed "Clean Up the Streets". However, due to a number of reasons, such as the complex structure of public housing and the lack of sufficient manpower and material resources, the effect of this action is not ideal. After Larry's robbery, the situation of family splitting and factionalism became even more serious, and the Chicago gang was in chaos.
In the 21st century, Chicago's gangster problem has not been cured. On the contrary, due to the continuous decline of the urban economy, the fiscal deficit is getting bigger and bigger, and the law enforcement resources tend to shrink. In 2012, even the anti-gang police force in Chicago was forced to disband. Between 2009 and 2016 alone, the number of investigators in the police department decreased by about 30 percent. At the same time, the rate of repeat recidivism is high due to the lenient sentences for gun crimes.
The Chicago police had to turn to the United Nations in the hope of sending a peacekeeping force to Chicago for law and order. It can be said that the glory of this once the largest city in the western United States is no longer beautiful.