A Piece Of A Peace Of Mind

When I die

Bury me deep

With two Disciples at my feet

Put a shotgun across my chest

And Tell the nation I did my best.

The foregoing is an epitaph I memorized, as a member of the Blackstone Rangers street gang, in the early to late 1960s. From time to time, in looking at the gang related murders in Chicago, I’m reminded of how blessed I am to have lived through that era. In  thinking of my great-nephew John who, not long ago, was also involved in gang activity right in the very neighborhood that the majority of these murders are currently being committed. How grateful I am that he’s in a college in Texas, and having talked with him just the other day, I was made aware that he was a member of the rival Gangster Disciples street gang. How blessed and ironic it is, in regard to the foregoing epitaph, that there’s a forty year gap between our membership in rival gangs.  

Peer pressure, and the desire to be a part of an entity larger than myself, where I felt accepted and respected, coerced me into joining a gang. According to my nephew, he had no choice. His not wanting to be an ‘oddball’ was a part of his decision to join, and the peer pressure was more intense because it was accompanied by threats of fatal harm to both family and himself. As he shared with me, he didn’t want his mother having to deal with that manner of stress, and felt he had no choice but to join.

Both John and myself resigned from our gang affiliation voluntarily. I followed my sister Pat to Crane Jr. College and upon meeting Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, my consciousness was substantially altered. John, on the other hand, said that he was tired of “seeing everybody dying and getting locked up," and he felt that it would be best for everyone if he took leave of that particular lifestyle. As for what’s going on today, especially in our Chicago hometown, we both hope for the best, but agree that the current gang tragedies are not going to stop anytime soon.

So where do we go from here. We each go in to that place inside ourselves, where we can reassess who we are and decide what we’re going to do, not only as Chicagoans but as residents of this vast universe. The fact of the matter is that what’s going on in Chicago is only a microcosm of what’e going on across the globe. The Black P. Stone Nation and the Gangster Disciples have memberships across America and beyond, yet they are merely street gangs that are being targeted and focused on. There are other gangs however, that we spend way too much time ignoring. 

These gangs are the Chicago City Council, the Illinois State Legislature, the FBI, the CIA, and the United Nations. They, like the street gangs, have been supposedly set up

 to protect the rights and well being of their constituents, but they too, through greed, corruption, and total disdain for everybody and everything that might hinder their selfish objectives, are subjecting everybody on the planet to murder and mayhem, through both covert and preconceived means. We have no choice but to envision and employ our own solutions of how to separate ourselves from the control of these gangs, that are posing as concerned and protective institutions, yet are thriving on the incarceration, disillusionment, poverty, dependency, and outright oppression of those of lower socio-economic status and inadequate mental-spiritual foundations. 

Let’s at least think about it y’all. Let’s share our thoughts with like-minded others, and vow not to look at situations as particular to one group of people, but as directly or indirectly related to us all. Then and only then can we adequately address] the tragedies that confront us on a day to day basis, and gain for ourselves at least a piece of a ‘Peace of Mind’. Hence, for me, a new epitaph that reads:

I ain’t ever gonna die,

But when I leave, 

This plane of existence,

I want you all to know that I was here,

And that I did all the good I could,

With what I had to work with.

I’ll holla…

To comment or respond please click on the word comments at the bottom of this page, or email me at grace.calvin187@gmail.com