History
The Blackstone Rangers were founded at the St. Charles Institution for Troubled Youth by Jeff Fort and Eugene Hairston as a community organization for black youth in the Woodlawn area of South Chicago. In the 1960s they evolved into one of the most dangerous and powerful gangs in Chicago. Fort seized upon the gang's changed mission, renaming it the Black P. Stone Nation. He transformed the BPS into a black nationalistic group, and continued to involve the gang in street crime and drug trafficking.
BPSN founding member Eugene Hairston was incarcerated on drug charges on June 6, 1966, and Fort was arrested for mismanagement of government grants totaling $927,000 from the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in March 1972. Fort was released in the early 1980s, but was later re-incarcerated on drug charges. At some time in the 1980s, Fort converted to Islam and imbued the BPS with Islamic overtones. It was then that he adopted the name of Abdullah-Malik and the rank of "caliph." Following meetings during 1986 with Libyan operatives from Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's government, Fort was charged with buying weapons to commit terrorist acts on behalf of the Libyan government. In 1987, Fort was tried and convicted for conspiring with Libya to perform acts of domestic terrorism by use of COINTELPRO type methods. He was sentenced to 80 years imprisonment and transferred to the USP Marion, the federal supermax prison in Marion, Illinois. In 1988, Fort was also convicted of ordering the 1981 murder of a rival gang leader and was sentenced to 75 years in prison to be served after the completion of his terror conspiracy sentence.
While Abdullah-Malik continues to exercise considerable influence over the BPS from prison, the various Black Stones splinter groups suffer from rampant infighting without a clear leader. There are two major groups that have split with the B.P.S. The Mickey Cobras were supporters of Mickey Cogwell, a co-founder of BPS killed by Jeff Fort. The Titanic Stones were supporters of Eugene Hairston who had a falling-out with Fort.
Read more about this topic: Black P. Stones
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