aka the real Warriors, the real truce, the real Cyruses, and their real legacy
in the 70s there was not one figure named Cyrus calling for peace and engineering a truce between gangs. because in some ways, there were hundreds. let's set the scene. in the 17th century a swedish settler's house hosted a conference where the dutch and Lenape signed peace treaties. the settler's name was bronck. no one knows who put a frickin X in it, but eventually bronck's land twisted into The Bronx. more of his name stayed intact than any of those treaties.
in 1971, street violence and arson in the south Bronx were inescapable. the Ghetto Brothers named one Black Benjie to the position usually referred to as "warlord", the officer in charge of holding turf borders. except they used a different term, "peace counselor". the Ghetto Brothers were one of the biggest gangs in new york city, but they were also a band, and they had a version of the Black Panthers' free children's breakfast program (which had developed while Angela Davis was with the Panthers), and they advocated for healthcare, and Black Benjie in particular stood up for staying clean and keeping his neighborhood kids in school.
on december 2, 1971, several other gangs were found attacking kids on Ghetto Brothers corners, and they sent their peace ambassador to cool them off. Black Benjie, determined to talk peace, arrived to be told "peace, shit" before a lead pipe and machete were pulled on him. he told his brothers to run. Black Benjie never came home.
one of the street's strongest voices of harmony was killed. and for nothing. blood was on the air. Lorine Padilla, former first lady of the Savage Skulls, recalled, “i knew we were going to war." the Ghetto Brothers put together an armory and grabbed members of the Mongols and Seven Immortals, brutally beating one. (he may have been innocent, and no one was ever convicted for Black Benjie's killing.) several other gangs promised to help take down any gang involved in the killing, just waiting on word from the Ghetto Brothers. everyone knew an all-out turf war was just a matter of time. but before that word went out, another Ghetto Brother and another Benjy, Benjy Melendez, suggested they talk to Black Benjie's mother, Gwendolyn Benjamin, before they commit to that path.
as remembered by Padilla, Gwendolyn just said, “I don’t [want] war. I want peace. My son died for peace."
peace seemed impossible. listening to the end of Warriors can feel pretty bleak. cause who would show up to another peace meeting unarmed after peace's biggest proponent was just killed on their own blocks? right? but here's the truth. they decided to try. within days, the Ghetto Brothers sent out a different message than the city was waiting for. they brought over 150 representatives from over 40 crews to meet at neutral territory, the Hoe Avenue Boys Club of America. this included exactly two women, the leaders of two all female gangs, who were made to sit in back. cops' snipers and reporters waited outside, hungry for blood. Melendez remembers constantly scanning everyone for weapons that might have snuck in. it was tense. and it was slow. they talked of blame. and justice. and then infrastructure. and the lack of social services in the south bronx. and the root causes of gangs. and in the tapes of the meeting: "the whitey don’t come down here man and have no heat in the fucking winter time. we gotta make it a better place to live.” and it turned out hundreds of people had been thinking the same thing. and Melendez told the conclave they weren't gangs anymore, they were an organization looking forward and building something. and then the gang leaders shook hands.
and they signed a treaty.
on december 7, 1971, with Black Benjie's body five days cold, the Hoe Avenue Peace Treaty dictated: groups must respect each other and their women, disputes must be settled by talking or, if needs must, 1-on-1 gladiator-style, "each member clique of the Family will be able to wear their colors in other member cliques’ turf without being bothered", and "PEACE BETWEEN ALL GANGS AND A POWERFUL UNITY.”
the play used to be, crews rocking colors on others' turf would be forced to hand over those clothes. then often, that crew would come back angry and try to get them back, and a war could start. (side note, this is part of what's going on in Orphantown, and i think having one of the circles be unaware of the hit out and following yesterday's etiquette is a really clean, efficient way of establishing the world and stakes.)
but now, the streets were open world. it wasn't perfect and wasn't always followed and still allowed for some violence, but the truce held well enough that Kool Herc could DJ a party in 1973--one and a half years and two and a half miles from the Hoe Avenue peace summit--scratching and emceeing while the crowd b-boyed and sprayed graffiti. musical and cultural ideas could spread from his own jamaican rhythms to Afrika Bambaataa further east and Grandmaster Flash who was now bouncing all around the Bronx.
the spark of decades of tension turned toward creation caught, via parties and cassettes. amidst a borough its own landlords were trying to burn down for the money, this sound became the voice of a culture fighting to keep being heard. over half a century later, hip-hop is celebrated in museums and on every radio, new york city is a tourism capitol of the world, and we get Warriors the album. music scholars call that party in '73 the birth of hip-hop, and many agree that party and its effects wouldn't have been possible without the Hoe Avenue Peace Treaty.
and that summit only happened because a grieving mother set down retribution and called out for peace.
thank you for reading! i get this isn't typically what normal fandom is about, but i'm into history and i think to meet a piece like this halfway, we gotta try caring about the stuff Eisa cares about. i'm writing this in a terrifying moment in my country's history, and it is nourishing to learn the practicalities of how beauty has sprung from hopelessness. it's happened before.
I love the line "there’s a gun and he’s pulling it out" because of the inversion of the way one would assume it would be said, "he’s pulling out a gun." It really shows Cleon’s tunnel vision in that moment, she is panicked and is only perceiving the world in bits. Of course she would notice the gun, an object that should not be there and is dangerous, before the motion of pulling it out!!
Out of curiosity has there been any overlap between an actress that's played Zoe Murphy (DEH) and one that's played Natalie Goodman (N2N) because I feel like that should be a thing.
Rewatching The Greatest Showman because I haven't in a while and Istg no matter how many times I rewatch it tightrope will always make me fall into tears like bro I can'.
i'm genuinely not going to lie I don't think any other musical gets me as emotional as this one like there are some close seconds but never to the point where I'm genuinely on the verge of tears by the end PLEASE JUST GET ON BROTHER ALREADY I NEED TO RELIVE THAT FEELING
Rewatching The Greatest Showman because I haven't in a while and Istg no matter how many times I rewatch it tightrope will always make me fall into tears like bro I can'.
Whatever you do, don't think about Swan being convinced she failed everyone because Fox did not make it home alive. Don't think about Mercy secretly beating herself up for not stopping Fox from jumping out of the train. Don't think about Ajax being angry at herself because she is supposed to be the fighter, their protector, she could have beaten the cop if she had been there. Don't think about Cleon blaming herself for not listening to her crew when they told her it was dangerous to go uptown.
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