New Orleans after the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship, and the Search for the Great Society

10. The Thugs United and the Politics of Manhood

CHAPTER TEN The Thugs United and the Politics of Manhood We must massively assert our dignity and our worth. . . . We can no longer be ashamed of who we are or what we are. . . . The Black man [must] rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. . . . Say Loud, Clear, Strong and with his own voice, I am somebody. I am a Man. —The Thugs United, Inc., Street Scene Community Newspaper, February 1971 During the late 1960s, New Orleans experienced an intense political transformation. It was the democratic moment that black leaders had wanted for so long. The conditions for creating something new for the South were finally set. Competition on the streets, in the bureaucracies, and at the polls would determine what kind of city emerged from the shadows of Jim Crow. Racial rules were in flux and ready to be redefined. Black voter registration was rising, and organizations were springing up to channel the power of those votes. The Great Society was providing local people with unprecedented resources and was encouraging public and private political mobilization. The urban crisis had created deep distress and the political incentive for action. Black unrest had become a central issue in local and national politics, and the poverty of the nation’s cities could no longer be ignored. Equally important was white unrest, as backlash to racial liberalism and black assertiveness was helping break apart the bases of the Democratic Party. Hovering over all of this were 211 the dreams of southern capitalists who saw that there was money to be made—no matter what happened. The concluding section of this book examines the expansion of black power and its role in the solidification of southern liberalism. A number of grassroots groups formed—including The Thugs United, Inc. and the National Committee to Combat Fascism, better known as the Black Panthers—and War on Poverty efforts (such as community action and Urban Renewal) cultivated other black organizations known by their acronyms (especially SOUL, COUP, and BOLD). These essentially private groups challenged notions of white power, but they often disagreed over strategies and goals. Some accepted gradualist reform, while others pushed for racial revolution. The most successful of them did whatever it took to seize influence. SOUL leader and black militant Sam Bell offered a pragmatic assessment of the situation when he told reporters, “We take our help anywhere we can get it.”1 Along the way, these organizations helped chart the political triumph of racial liberalism, but they also exposed some of its most serious flaws. They proved once again that democratic moments are rarely easy. The Thugs United, Inc., was led by young black men. This militant community organization emerged from a gang summit at a housing project in 1966, flourished for a few years, and then disappeared. Under the leadership of Warren Carmouche—a nineteen-year-old, 240-pound former pimp, janitor, and War on Poverty organizer—the Thugs United garnered attention from local and national media for both scaring and inspiring people. From 1968 until 1971, Carmouche and his lieutenants used their ability to strike fear and admiration to attract funding from the Model Cities program and from private, predominantly white sources. They focused on mobilizing their peers and running an adult education program known as the People’s College. They also operated an ex-convict training program, a high school dropout program, a Shell gas station, a recreation program, some small retail ventures, and several other smaller initiatives. At the height of its operations, the Thugs United had three offices and over a dozen subgroups. The total number of Thugs members is unknown. The Thugs United leadership claimed they had over six thousand members, but less biased sources give the range as several 212 Dixie’s Democratic Moment hundred. Their primary focus was local, especially Central City and other New Orleans target areas, but they did have an affiliation with the national Youth Organizations United (YOU). Carmouche served as a YOU vice president. Formed in May 1968 in East St. Louis, YOU eventually had affiliates in almost sixty cities and received a number of high-profile grants from the OEO and other federal entities. Among the over three hundred street organizations in YOU were the Conservative Vice Lords in Chicago, the Son of Watts in Los Angeles, the Real Great Society in New York, the Twelfth and Oxford...