Gang Leader For a Day

In July 1995, Venkatesh attends the regional Black Kings meeting in Calumet Heights, a well-to-do black neighborhood where many senior gang leaders have homes. The meeting takes the form of a pool party and is much less glamorous than Venkatesh imagined; it’s just men talking and drinking beer. J.T. introduces him to everyone as “the Professor”. Venkatesh finds he doesn’t have to ask anyone questions, the men are eager to tell him their stories –both their personal stories and the history of the Black Kings. In fact, one senior leader introduces Venkatesh as the gang’s new director of communications and encourages his men to speak to him. This makes Venkatesh nervous—he doesn’t want to get even more involved with the gang.

Venkatesh attends several of these meetings and is relieved to find he hasn’t been given an official position. J.T. is quiet at these meetings and Venkatesh is struck by his pride in this young man he’s known for six years. Like the other leaders, J.T. is increasingly worried about the prospect of being arrested or killed, and he becomes obsessed with saving money for his mother and children. His anxiety is evident in his frequent requests that Venkatesh review his life, so nothing gets left out of his biography. The Black Kings’ paranoia is increased by the ongoing federal gang-busts and they constantly worry that someone will inform on them. This makes Venkatesh’s situation even more precarious: if he cuts contact with the gang there is a chance that they will think he’s an informer and try to punish him.

For J.T., the impending demolition of Robert Taylor Homes is also a problem. Part of his success as a gang leader was geographical; it was relatively easy to make a profit in Robert Taylor. Not, he had to try and establish himself in a new area and maintain the membership of his faction. This is made particularly difficult because the wages for junior gang members are low—barely minimum wage. Venkatesh witnesses the challenges facing J.T. when he watches him address new recruits in West Pullman; the men are full of questions and seem dismissive of J.T. and the Black Kings. J.T. is also worried about what will happen to Price and T-Bone. One day, Venkatesh gets a message to meet T-Bone in a parking lot that evening. There, T-Bone hands over the gang’s financial record. He seems pessimistic about his chances and tells Venkatesh he wishes he’d never joined the gang. Venkatesh never shared the notebooks with the police; with Steve Levitt, he published some critically acclaimed articles using the information T-Bone had given him. Venkatesh thinks that the academically-minded T-Bone—who was later arrested and died in prison—would have been pleased that he’d contributed something to that work.

Meanwhile, the other tenants are also trying to come to terms with the loss of their homes. The CHA begins holding public meetings to address their concerns but they are largely unsuccessful. The tenants are deeply skeptical of the authorities’ ability to re-house them and distrustful of their elected leaders, too. Venkatesh learns that Ms. Bailey and other Building Presidents have already made a variety of demands to the CHA—with Ms. Bailey requesting a five-bedroom house for herself—most of which have been granted. Ms. Bailey is very honest with Venkatesh and tells him that the CHA doesn’t have enough money to help everyone so she’s going to make sure her people are looked after: her friends and those who pay her.

For some tenants, demolition represents the possibility of a fresh start and many work together to achieve this. Venkatesh learns about the “stay-together gang”, a group of women in another building led by Dorothy Battie, who want to try and maintain their existing network by moving close to one another. Dorothy’s attempts to help these women are impeded by a woman named Mrs. Reemes, a self-styled “relocation agent”, who, unlike Dorothy, is charging tenants an exorbitant fee for help in finding somewhere new to live. Mrs. Reemes harasses Dorothy for a cut of what she’s making—which is nothing—going so far as to have Officer Jerry plant drugs on Dorothy and arrest her for possession. Dorothy’s friends also find it hard to escape the projects once they move. One woman’s brother and uncle threaten her, move into her new apartment, and start dealing drugs, causing her to lose the lease. Despite these setbacks, Dorothy’s success rate was at least as high as that of the various official agencies involved in re-homing tenants, many of whom ended up in poor black neighborhoods where conditions were just as bad as in Robert Taylor, or worse.

Before the demolition takes place, Ms. Bailey invites Venkatesh to a back-to-school party that J.T. has funded. He hasn’t been to Robert Taylor for a while—he’s been concentrating on his dissertation—and his visit makes him feel nostalgic. He is amazed to see a small garden of flowers outside the building; the last time he recalls seeing flowers at Robert Taylor was in preparation for President Clinton’s visit, which sought to highlight gang violence in Chicago public housing. Then, the flowers had symbolized the competition between buildings to spruce themselves up for the president; now, they signal the community spirit that has emerged in the face of demolition.

In the middle of the party, shots ring out from the upper floors of the building. People duck for cover as the shots continues; it’s probably a drug addict with a gun. A drunken woman stagers in front of the building, oblivious to the danger, and bullets ring out near her feet. An older man eventually drags her to safety and the shooting stops. No one calls the police.

In the spring of 1996, Venkatesh receives a Junior Fellowship at Harvard and prepares to leave Chicago. He wants to tell J.T. the good news, but when he gets to Ms. Mae’s apartment he finds J.T. preoccupied with the idea of liaising with a gang leader in New Jersey. Then he suggests a collaboration in which he would put Venkatesh in touch with gang leaders from all over the country, to “figure out how the whole thing works” (163). Venkatesh is non-committal and they sit in awkward silence. J.T. is under constant pressure now: the FBI are targeting the Black Kings and he thinks he might be better off getting arrested rather than being mistaken for an informer.

When the gang stops making money, so does Ms. Bailey, money she needs to help her tenants relocate. As a result, some tenants begin to turn on her and accuse her of taking the money for herself. The only time Venkatesh saw her cry was when she told him about those allegations.

J.T. calls him and requests a meeting. When he arrives, he finds Robert Taylor is like a ghost town. Venkatesh has changed too: he now looks like a professor. J.T. is in a better mood—the federal indictments are over and he’s unlikely to be arrested. Venkatesh would like to ask him how he avoided jail but doesn’t have the guts. J.T. gives him a piece of paper listing the names of gang leaders in the New York area and a letter of introduction. Venkatesh is moved by the gesture. J.T. then suggests they get some food and they go to a diner and discuss his latest management issues.

A few years later, J.T. leaves the Black Kings and starts managing his cousin’s dry-cleaning business. For a while, he also runs a barbershop. The money he saved during his gang days supplements his income and he occasionally does some consulting work for the BK senior management.

Venkatesh had hoped that he and J.T. would remain friends when he moved to Harvard but things become awkward. He still sees J.T. sometimes when he’s in Chicago but they are not friends and he wonders if they ever really were. Either way, J.T. was a huge part of his life.