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“You-all are outside, so you need to respect who else is around you,” he said. “If you’re in a park working, leave the ladies alone. Don’t be working around the children. That just gets the mamas mad. If you see kids playing, take a break and then get back to work. Remember, what you do says a lot about the Black Kings. You have to watch your image, take pride in yourself.
“You are not just foot soldiers in the Black Kings,” he continued. “You are foot soldiers in the community. You will register to vote today, but then you must all go out and register the people in your buildings. And when elections come around, we’ll tell you who to vote for and you’ll tell them. That’s an important duty you have when you belong to this organization.”
For my classes at the U of C, I’d been reading about the history of the Chicago political machine, whose leaders-white and black alike-were famous for practicing the dark arts of ballot stuffing, bribery, and yes, predelivered voting blocs. Like his predecessors, Le
When Le
Le
J.T. and Le
I asked Le
About two weeks later, I got to witness this “community thing” in action. I followed four young Black Kings as they went door-to-door in J.T.’s building to register voters.
Shorty-Lee, a twenty-one-year-old gang member, was the head of the delegation. For about an hour, I trailed him on his route. Most of his knocks went unanswered. The few tenants who did sign their names looked as if they just wanted to make the gang members leave as quickly as possible.
At one apartment on the twelfth floor, a middle-aged woman answered the door. She was wearing an apron and wiping her wet hands on a dish towel; she looked surprised to see Shorty-Lee and the others. Door-to-door solicitation hadn’t been practiced in the projects for a long time. “We’re here to sign you up to vote,” Shorty-Lee said.
“Young man, I am registered,” the woman said calmly.
“No, we didn’t say register!” Shorty-Lee shouted. “We said sign up. I don’t care if you’re registered.”
“But that’s what I’m saying.” The woman eyed Shorty-Lee curiously. “I already signed up. I’m going to vote in the next primary.”
Shorty-Lee was puzzled. He looked over to the three other BKs. They were toting spiral-bound notebooks in which they “signed up” potential voters. But it seemed that neither Le
“Look, you need to sign right here,” Shorty-Lee said, grabbing one of the notebooks. He was clearly not expecting even this minor level of resistance. “And then we’ll tell you who you’re going to vote for when the time comes.”
“Who I’m going to vote for!” The woman’s voice grew sharp. She approached the screen door to take a better look. As she glanced at me, she waved-I recognized her from several parties at J.T.’s mother’s apartment. Then she turned back to Shorty-Lee. “You can’t tell me who to vote for,” she said. “And I don’t think that’s legal anyway.”
“Black Kings say who you need to vote for,” Shorty-Lee countered, but he was growing tentative. He turned to his fellow gang members. “Ain’t that right? Ain’t that what we’re supposed to do?” The others shrugged.
“Young man,” the woman continued, “have you ever voted?”
Shorty-Lee looked at the others, who seemed quite interested in his answer. Then he looked at me. He seemed embarrassed. “No,” he said. “I ain’t voted yet. But I will.”
“Did you know that you can’t take anyone in the voting booth with you?” the woman asked him.
“Naw, that’s a lie,” Shorty-Lee said, puffing out his chest. “They told me that we’ll all be voting together. Black Kings vote together. I told you that we’d be telling you who-”
“No, no, no-that’s not what I mean,” she interrupted. “I mean, first you vote. Then your friend votes, and then he votes-if he’s old enough.” She was staring now at the youngest boy in the group, a new gang member who looked about twelve years old.
“I’m old enough,” the boy said, insulted.
“You have to be eighteen,” the woman said with a gentle smile. “How old are you?”
“I’m Black Kings!” he cried out. “I can vote if I want to.”
“Well, you’ll probably have to wait,” the woman said, by now exasperated. “And, boys, I got food cooking, so I can’t talk to you right now. But if you come back, I can tell you all about voting. Okay? It’s probably the most important thing you’ll do with your life. Next to raising a family.”
“Okay.” Shorty-Lee shrugged, defeated.
The others also nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” one of them muttered, and they walked off. I waved good-bye to the woman, who smiled as if she’d won the victory of a small-town schoolteacher: a promise that her children would learn.
I followed Shorty-Lee and the others down the gallery. None of them seemed to know what should happen next. Shorty-Lee looked pained, struggling to muster some leadership capacity and perhaps save face.
“You know you can’t register people until five o’clock?” I said, wanting to break the silence. I was only a few years older than Shorty-Lee, but I found myself feeling strangely parental. “That’s what J.T. told me.”
J.T. hadn’t told me to say this. But I felt so bad for Shorty-Lee that I wanted to give him an out. I figured I could talk to him later, when we were alone, and explain how registration actually worked.