"Light Him Up!"

Generations of teen-age Harlem Negroes have belonged to block gangs. Their rough-&-tumble rivalry, their extortion of five-cent tributes from nonmembers, has been a part of Manhattan life since saloons were gaslit. But war brought a disquieting transformation--packs of adolescent Negroes began to arm themselves with clubs, "switchblade" knives and crude, home made pistols. In the past few months they have gradually begun to terrorize the law-abiding folk of Harlem, who no longer sit so peacefully on their bedding-draped fire escapes, and fear to walk home from a dish of "rice & ribs" at the restaurant.

Gangs with names like Ebony Dukes, Imperial Huns, Pals of Satan, Slicksters, the Mysterious Fives, race the streets, stabbing, fighting, hunting lone members of the opposition. One hot evening a fort night ago two gangs, the Chancellors and the Copians, set a pattern for more formal battle in the street outside Harlem's Colonial Park.

The Chancellors left a dance in the park, walked stiffly down a flight of stone steps, and stopped at the sidewalk under a street light. The Copians stood silently at the opposite curb, half hidden in the shadow of a brick building. The Copian emissary, a 16-year-old named George Christy, walked toward the enemy. The Chancellors circled him, voices rising.

Then a Copian threw a milk bottle. As it crashed a Chancellor screamed, "Light him up!"*

A pistol slammed three bullets into Christy. Both groups disintegrated into dodging forms and the dark street filled with the flash and roar of confused gunfire. Police from the park and from a cruising car ran in, shooting. When it was over a 15-year-old boy lay dying from five police bullets, a revolver in one hand. Four other youths were bleeding on the pavement; two with their jaws shattered by slugs fired at point-blank range. A Negro police officer was swaying, with bullet wounds in his belly.

Last week fifteen Copians and Chancellors had been rounded up. They confessed that the battle had stemmed from an argument over a stolen cap. The police had to turn twelve of them loose for lack of evidence. Extra detectives, sent into Harlem to keep a day & night watch, doggedly made arrests, kept the streets quiet. But the law-abiders wondered how long the uneasy peace would last. Said a Negro taxi driver: "I walk the long way home. Those boys don't care for nothing."

* Harlemese--shoot him.

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