“Well now that they’re weakening the Rukns, we’ll soon see crack starting to overrun Chicago,” Rudy asserted, as we watched dozens of officers from various law enforcement agencies break into and generally swarm all over El Rukn headquarters at 3947 S. Drexel. “You see, the only reason Chicago don’t have the same crack problem that cities like Detroit and Los Angeles, even Milwaukee and Kansas City have, is because the Rukns wouldn’t let it in.
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A lot of people got the message. An audience of about 200 spectators had gathered on the scene. Helicopters circled above. At first I thought they were an airborne contingent of the same law enforcement officials who were attacking the building–I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised had they been–but it turns out they were TV copters. They must have sent some pretty good stuff back to the newsrooms of channels 5 and 7, I thought at the time–a small army of cops storming a building full of black people linked to Libya’s Colonel Khadafy was an image tailor-made for “sweeps” month in Chicago. I envisioned Carol Marin descending to the roof of the secured building on a helicopter cable while an announcer intoned, “The El Rukns’ Headquarters: from Fort to rubble…see Carol Marin’s special report…”
Rudy jolted me out of my reverie by pointing out that the flesh-and-blood Carol Marin was indeed on the scene. So was Jay Levine, he added. I’d never realized their names rhymed until he said, “Hey man, there’s Carol Marin and Jay Levine. And that’s Russ Ewing over there. I know ’em all, man. I even know the network reporters. And I don’t just mean anchormen. I know bureau people. Jed Duvall, George Strait, Andrea Mitchell, I know ’em man. Go ahead, ask me the name of ABC’s Washington correspondent. Go ahead ask me.”
In this community of Oakland–the city’s poorest, best known for its official unemployment rate of 31 percent–the Big Fort was the popular site of Friday and Saturday night parties. Residents say it was one of the very few black-owned spaces that allowed the neighborhood kids to gather freely. It was one of the few black-owned spaces, period.
