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In 1992, the Bloods and Crips gathered with each other and formed a truce between each other to prevent one another from killing each other. They formed this truce after the famous brutal police beating of Rodney King a year before this horrific event. That later became known as “The Watts Riots”. Crime and the murder rate were sky high, at its peak with the murder rate as high as over 1,000 per year. Black and Latino's gangs were mainly the cause of the skyrocketing murder rate by doing heinous criminal activity throughout the city. There was no end in sight for many to the point where people that were in gangs would always have to be on the lookout. You couldn’t even go places like pumping gas or going to the store without knowing if you were gonna get hurt or you would have to hurt someone due to being in the opposite gang of yours. This truce meant everything. Having this truce in an unlikely place to end violence between each other, came with something unique and profound, a peace offering. A housing project in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, two known rivals put down their guns and picked up a pen and paper to form what we know now the Watts truce. The gangs that met up were The Grape Street and P Jay Crips and they met up with the Hunter and Hacienda Blood sets. Football legend and anti-gang activist Jim Brown was a part of the facilitating. West coast rap all-stars also played a big part in setting the mood to end the violence with the historic song Were all in the same Gang. Within days the truce was active and many gangs stood their ground and kept the peace and the violence had almost completely stopped minus a few of those who held out, even as the infamous Los Angeles riots broke out the very next day. While some events may be different from then to now, the context is very much the same. The history will only go bad if we go back to repeating the violence, so it’s better to work together and end violence as one.
