People Nation - Chicago Gang History

In April 1978, Black Gangster Disciple leader Larry Hoover organized a work stoppage among prisoners. The reason for the stoppage was prisoners being served rotten food and overall being treated poorly. Most prisoners agreed with Larry Hoover even his rivals were on board. This protest caused Larry to organize a coalition between gangs to participate in this revolt. Larry got together with his allies and enemies and organized an alliance that would shortly after, break into two distinct alliances in prison. These coalitions allowed for negotiations between the rival groups to ease and control gang wars behind bars. Initially, there was no name for these coalitions, everyone just knew who their allies were. On the streets this new alliance was communicated loosely and had a smaller effect on street relations.

The organizations that were not allied with Larry Hoover and his allies adopted more of a spiritual aspect for their alliance that was tied into Christianity and Islamic beliefs. The El Rukns adopted Islamic fundamentals in 1976 and they passed these beliefs to the Vice Lords. The Vice Lords would not declare Islam law for their organization like the El Rukns but they brought many aspects of Islam into their new literature

El Rukns and Mickey Cobras ended their war in prison since the death of Mickey Cobra leader Henry “Mickey” Cogwell as the Mickey Cobras joined the coalition. The Four Corner Hustlers became a Vice Lord faction and were then invited into the coalition which stopped their wars with Vice Lords. The Latin Kings agreed to end their wars with Latin Counts, Vice Lords, Bishops, Puerto Rican Stones and Insane Unknowns so that these gangs could all be allies. The Spanish Lords were close allies with Latin Kings so it was easy for them to walk into the alliance.

In the year 1981, it was decided for alliances to be established on the streets and official literature was drawn up to govern these alliances. I am not sure of the story of how the “People” alliance name was chosen but it was seemingly drawn up between Vice Lords, El Rukns, Black P Stones and Latin Kings. The literature of the People alliance was more spiritual by nature than the Folk alliance.

In the year 1981, representatives from both the Folk and People alliances were released from prison that year and preached on the streets about representing the Folk and People alliance and all the gangs were informed as to which side they were on. People alliance bylaws were now enforced on the streets.

The People Nation alliance has quite a bit less gangs so they made up for it by keeping their alliance tight all throughout the 1980s while the Folk Nation gangs started to engage in more Folk on Folk violence by the late 1980s in certain parts of the city. There were only small disagreements and skirmishes that the Latin Kings were involved in against the Insane Deuces, Latin Counts, Puerto Rican Stones and Ghetto Brothers Organization; however, the gangs were at peace the vast majority of the time until war broke out with Insane Deuces in 1989 that would never end. In 1990, war would break out between Latin Kings and Ghetto Brothers Organization.

By 1991, the Latin Kings were at war with the Latin Counts and as the decade progressed the Latin Kings were at war with many other People Nation gangs. Factions of Black P Stones, Vice Lords and Mickey Cobras began engaging in wars in certain parts of the city. Bishops and Latin Counts went into a bloody war in 1996 and eventually the People Nation became as fractured as the Folk Nation.

Below is a original complete list that I know of for the organizations that joined People in the early 1980s:

Arch Dukes

Bishops

Black P Stones

Cullerton Deuces (Flipped to Folks in 1994)

El Rukns

Four Corner Hustlers (also declared part of Vice Lord nation while incarcerated)

Gaylords

Ghetto Brothers Organization/Yates Boys Organization

Insane Deuces (flipped to Folks in 1992)

Insane Popes (South Side)

Insane Unknowns