| This savagely moving book is the autobiography of a violent black street gang that in its 1960's heyday had perhaps 10,000 members in at least 26 branches on the West Side of Chicago. The Lords relentlessly and remorselessly terrorized the black residents of Lawndale with their senseless mayhem, murder, and gang warfare organized along military lines.
David Dawley, a young, white New Englander, came to Lawndale...and incredibly bridging the black-white abyss, became, "the only white Vice Lord," for two years in 1969. Dawley has written an authentic street-talk history in the first person of the Lords' blood-stained history.
Jack Star, Chicago Tribune
David Dawley has written a breathless, street-tough unsentimental (for the most part) history of the Conservative Vice Lords of Chicago's West Side... He lets his story run through gang wars, prison brutality and daily violence with a matter-of-fact air and an economy of language (street language) that, at times, reaches poetry... not a pretty book and the unrelenting toughness of it and of the way of the Lords sometimes sickens.
This narrative about an anarchic jungle of concrete, fled by whites and order if not the law, is an excellent one of the young black urban experience of today. In the bravado and self-explanation of these young toughs, in the failure of the system and the system's imposition of order that mocks itself (the ins and outs of St. Charles reformatory are hilariously horrible), Dawley has, despite his liberal apologia, exposed the true horror of the black dilemma.
The time may come when an objective historian will look at the phenomena of anarchy in the nation's cities which hired powerful gangs like the Lords and Stones. And when it comes, he will have to use this book for valuable first-hand accounts.
Bill Granger, Chicago Sun Times
A Nation Of Lords is an important contribution to understanding survival on the most dangerous streets in America - a book that provides dramatic insight into the problems facing young people living in cities throughout America.
David Dawley’s work as a community organizer is testimony to the power of individual commitment, and the success of the Vice Lords demonstrates that neighborhoods can be revitalized and lives can be saved when people of all ages have a stake in their community.
The voices in A Nation Of Lords need to be heard, and Dawley’s incredible adventure in the Sixties should inspire all of us in the Nineties to increase our efforts to help the youth of America.
Jack Kemp
Everyone interested in decreasing the racial and economic tensions which divide our country must read A Nation Of Lords immediately. It provides a penetrating insight into the minds of people who are growing up and living in urban America, and it shows how our government has missed opportunities to empower them to meet the challenges they face. This book reveals a powerful strategy for building our nation’s most under-resourced communities.
Wendy Kopp, Teach For America
A Nation Of Lords is more than just another book about gangs and the inner city - it’s an insider’s view of suffering, survival and short-lived triumph.
Having been a Cook County prosecutor before serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, I know from experience that the streets where Dawley worked are not friendly to strangers. Like everybody else who knew Lawndale in the Sixties, I have no idea how he survived. Dawley deserves recognition not just for the programs he developed as “a white Vice Lord,” but for taking readers into Chicago’s toughest streets without getting them hurt.
This is a great book, a timeless story of people and power with important implications for public policy.
Marty Russo, United States Congress, Retired
I found A Nation Of Lords extraordinary and applicable today. It is hard-hitting, persuasive and appeals both to those on the program and policy level. Keep up your fine work in this area and advocacy, as today, with the atomizing of family and neighborhood, we need public attention to this issue now more than ever.
John A. Calhoun, National Crime Prevention Council
David Dawley has the ideal combination of vision and practicality. I have been consistently impressed by his lucidity, sensitivity, total integrity and persuasiveness. He has the perseverance and common sense to know how to approach people and problems. One senses immediately his integrity and commitments to the highest ideals. He is what he says he is. And that allowed him to tread where no other non-Black person ever had. Out of that rare opportunity came service, and subsequently, a book.
A book of staggering significance, a powerful document that one might call present history. The times it relates have past, but the problems remain, and, indeed, have resurfaced in an even more virulent form. To read the book is to penetrate to the core of the problem. It should be required reading in our educational systems, as well as our civic organizations.
John A. Rassias, Dartmouth College In recent years a number of new books on gangs have appeared. Some of them address new ethnic groups and new issues. However, these works largely fail to tell us what to do about gangs. It is for this reason that the reissue of David Dawley’s book, A Nation Of Lords, is so important. Written in a style accessible to the lay reader, A Nation of Lords portrays how a street gang in Chicago, the Vice Lords, was able to develop other more prosocial strategies during the War on Poverty. It tells too about the despair of poverty, the life of desperation that the street breeds, and how youngsters gravitate to the street toughs for friendship and protection. But it goes beyond such descriptions for it shows us what these gang members did when opportunities and options were available. In the light of the Los Angeles upheaval last spring, A Nation of Lords reminds us that something can be done if the will and resources are made available to turn matters around. The book should be read by everyone who cares about our cities.
Diego Vigil, University of Southern California
After a career of bullets, bombs and brutality in 105 countries, I can say with confidence that David Dawley, an unsung American hero, offers our best hope for universal brotherhood, personal involvement and the knowledge that it is within our power to make friends of enemies.
A bible of hope and understanding, A Nation Of Lords, is about equality, perseverance, survival and the human potential for good. Dawley is leading the charge in a battle that matters.
Louis Mizell, Former Special Agent/Intelligence Officer, United States Department of State
A Nation of Lords remains the ultimate participant observation research on gangs in America. But more than social science, A Nation of Lords is testimony to the potential of a more idealistic time in this country. It was a time in which individuals such as David Dawley had the vision to see the value in human beings too often dismissed as having no value. It was a time when those who are now characterized as America’s underclass could unite to struggle for betterment of self and community. Recent research and journalistic accounts of today’s Vice Lords stand in stark contrast to Dawley’s powerful humanistic statement of what was and what might have been.
G. David Curry, West Virginia University
The people down here want to thank you in so many ways for writing a true book about our Nation. You are all the way down and from all Lords you will be always be known throughout.
King Lewis, Black Gangster Unknown Vice Lords
|
