Chicago’s Black P Stone Rangers were founded on the Windy City’s South Side in 1962 when Jeff Fort’s Black Stone Raiders gang and Eugene (Bull) Hairston’s Harper Boys gang merged. Fort went on to become one of the most notorious urban gang leaders in Chicago history. By the mid-1960s, Fort and Hairston would consolidate 21 South Side gangs into the P Stone Nation and call the unified front “The Main 21.”
The newly-minted crime conglomerate ruled 3,500 soldiers and veiled itself as a community development organization, scoring big-dollar government grants Fort and his henchmen pocketed instead of using to better the neighborhoods they lorded over. Fort consummated drug distribution deals with Italian mobsters in Milwaukee and expanded his gang into the suburbs.
Soon, Fort and Hairston had a falling out and Hairston was edged out of power, eventually slain (1988). Fort masked the gang in a Muslim façade known as El Rukn in the late 1970s and 1980s. He was finally brought down in a trio of federal busts, a 1983 narcotics indictment and 1986 indictments for murder and conspiracy, a case which showed the gang’s ties to the Libyan government and Fort’s negotiations to undertake domestic terrorist activity on behalf of the foreign adversary in exchange for money
OG Roll Call (ChiTown Style):
THE MAIN 21
Henry (Mickey the Cobra) Cogwell — Leader of the Mickey Cobras (formerly the Egyptian Cobras, the oldest street gang in Chicago), Jeff Fort’s acting boss while he is locked up in the early 1970s and the P Stone Nation’s liaison to the Chicago mafia. Cogwell disagrees with Fort’s decision to turn the P Stone Nation into a Muslim sect and is killed February 25, 1977.
Charles (The Bear) Bey — Involved in the 1970 murder of Chicago Police Detective Jim Alfano and the 1986 conspiracy to assassinate South Side drug kingpin Willie (Flukey) Stokes.
George (Mad Dog Watusi) Rose — Jeff Fort’s top enforcer, the P Stone Nation’s first official “Warlord” and eventually a government witness against the Nation.
Lee (Stone) Jackson
William (Sweet Pea) Troope — Convicted in the 1970 killing Chicago Police Detective Jim Alfano.
Melvin (Lefty) Bailey — Convicted of trying to kill Black Gangster Disciples gang boss David Barksdale in May 1968.
Herbert (Thunder) Stevens — Leader of the Titanic Stones wing of the P Stone Nation along with his gangland running buddy Randy (Rube) Dillard.
Lawrence (TNT Tom Tucker) White — Leader of the Apache Stones wing of the P Stone Nation.
Adam (Lito) Battiste
Sylvester (Big Hutch) Hutchins
Charles (Bosco) Franklin
George (Georgie Porgie) Martin
Andrew (A.D) McChristian — Convicted of trying to kill Black Gangster Disciples gang boss David Barksdale in May 1968.
Fletcher (Bo Peep) Pugh
Edwin (Little Charlie) Codwell
Herman (Moose) Holmes — Leader of the Gangster Stones wing of the P Stone Nation, the original Black Gangster Disciples.
Robert (Dog) Jackson & Moses (Big Moose) Jackson — Dog Jackson was murdered by Jeff Fort’s brother Drew.
Paul (The Profit) Martin — Bull Hairston’s top advisor, sometimes referred to as “Crazy Paulie.” Martin is killed in 1968 in the early stages of a power play by Jeff Fort.
Lamar (Bop Daddy) Bell — Ran the P Stone Nation’s youth center.
John (Cool Johnnie) Jones
Bernard (Droop) Green — Acted as one of Jeff Fort’s key enforcers.
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