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During the 1970s, you could find members of the Gaylord Nation working withing the Logan Square Neighborhood Association doing work like cleaning up the neighborhoods, painting over gang graffiti, and painting old neighborhood garages for seniors who could not care for them themselves. The Gaylords were also very vocal, and attended Logan Square meetings and not only defended their existence, but made suggestions on how the Logan Square community could be improved.
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Gangs always seemed to take the headlines of newspapers doing all kinds of menacing things. You rarely hear any positive things spoken of gangs. Most true, gangs are always tied to violence that on most occasions they are completely guilty of. In short, gangs members do commit many criminal acts. However, this probably has more to do with the survival tactics needed to survive in a violent world that society itself has laid as it's foundation, on the very streets where it's youth are brought up and come in to being.
Gangs are always played out as not caring about society or their role in it. Society likes to make gangs seem like their sole mission is bent on the destruction of whole communities, which in most cases is the contrary.
If one was to read back over the many in-depth articles, where a real gang member is being interviewed, they would find one constant reoccurring statement being made. That is, gang members are trying to , "Protect their turf or hood and keep undesirables out." As a matter of fact, if one was to go and interview most people that lived around a street gang, and actually knew some of them, they would be very surprised to find that most people liked the gang or understood them. You might even find stories of help from the gang; from carrying a TV set for an old lady to defending somebodies daughter from being harassed on the street. Yes, gang members are not Boy Scouts, but many times they are trying to reach out to the general community around them to find a middle ground of understanding and change. To give proof of this, we are giving you a visual showing of evidence of how one gang, the Gaylords of course, did care about the community they lived in, and wanted to play an important role in it. Take note: this material is from the middle to late 1970s, when things like this were documented more frequently.
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Palmer Street Gaylords' Painting |
Palmer In GL Sweater Painting |
Gaylord
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8 of 11 History Pages