This is Chicago's west side.
It has a reputation for juvenile violence.
The teenagers here live on the streets.
They lord over the corners.
They've made a world of their own with unwritten laws and loyalties.
This is Clarence Smith.
His friends call him Jap.
The words you hear belong to Jap and to his friends.
What they have said is a description of their world as they see it.
The judgments and evaluations of their lives and codes are made by them on their own terms with their own standards.
The law is not a law.
This here is our corner.
But it ain't like it used to be.
Used to be you couldn't walk up on this corner if you didn't know nobody.
It was just like when you go to jail.
If you go to jail and you don't know nobody, well, you just gonna get a weapon.
Same on this corner.
But it done cooled down now.
Cops done got it uptight.
We used to hang out in this place called a shack.
But they done closed it down.
Then we started hanging around the footlong.
But they keep kicking us out.
So now the only place we can have our fun is on the corner.
And can't nobody close that down.
Someday.
Everybody up on this corner is vice -lords.
You get with a bunch of guys on the corner and you ain't a vice -lord.
Well, they figure you something else.
They figure maybe you belong to another club.
And if they figure that, you just might as well give it up right there.
Because they gonna put some hurting on you.
Somebody asks you if you're in a club, well, you tell them.
You should never try to hide that you're a vice -lord.
Because if you can't tell the truth, you should never join up.
The vice -lords isn't an all right club to me.
Until they get to juicing them.
They feel like fighting.
I don't go for that.
Everybody over here drinks wine.
Because they think that's the swinging thing to do.
Some of the older boys can talk sins.
But the young ones, they're ignorant.
They're destructive.
But I wouldn't say they're rough.
They try to be.
I mean, they do a good job of making people think they're rough.
Because they're always jumping on somebody.
A lot of people figure like this.
Get rid of them before they start something.
But I don't figure like that.
I say, wait until something starts.
Then if nobody messes with me, leave them alone.
If they want to get drunk, then act a fool, let them.
Once I was president of a sociable club called the Corvairs.
13 and 14 year olds.
But it got broke up.
See, the vice -lords claimed that some of the Corvairs had shot at them.
So they messed us up.
Only, it wasn't the Corvairs who did the shooting.
It was some boys with us.
But the reason the vice -lords got aroused at us because, well, they were the boys who were shooting.
It's like the police say, if you're with them, you're them.
Everybody's got to stick together, man.
Yeah, you got to have confidence in your fellows.
If somebody's giving you a raw deal, the best thing to do is go on and bust the man up alongside his head, walk off and forget about it.
Don't never underestimate a person.
I've only been beat two times in my life.
And that was by a person that I know what I could be.
If a person do you wrong, sooner or later, he gonna have to come up on the corner.
Because he got to go somewhere, and the first time you see him, that's it.
Hey, gun, ain't no thing to have if you ain't got a cool head.
If you're drunk, a gun will get you in trouble.
If I get drunk, I'd do a hell of a lot of things that I wouldn't do if I weren't drunk.
Yeah, that's me too, man.
Your mother, she know if you're in the club or where you're at.
Right now, I try to act as nice as I can to my mother, because she got an idea I'm with a gang.
So she asked me, and I told her.
She never said anything more about it.
See, sometimes mother, they worry about their boys being in the club, because she want her kids to stay out of the way.
They try to get out of trouble, and get the best of everything.
They don't know.
They try to pet their kid too much.
They try to do too much for them.
Mother got to put her kid in a class with every other kid, because no kid is better than the next.
But most mothers is okay though.
They do the best they can.
Now, my mother, she always treated me nice.
Now, so, every day when I went to school, she'd give me money to put in my pocket.
She used to give me that because she never wanted me to steal.
And she figured if I had money in my pocket, I wouldn't have to go out and rob nobody.
I'd never been to jail for stealing nothing, because I never had it in my mind.
Now, sometimes your mama gonna put you out.
If she get tired of you acting a fool, and getting in trouble, she gonna put you out.
This friend of mine, he ain't had no sense.
His mother got tired of getting him out of jail.
And she said she was gonna send him down south with his old man to keep him out of trouble.
But he didn't want to go.
So she said the next time he go to jail, she wouldn't get him out.
He'd have to do his own thing.
So he left home.
He wanted to be on his own.
That was his mistake.
He say so himself.
Now, fathers, there's something else.
Some boys like their fathers, some don't.
Now, me and my daddy, we was never close together.
Because his wife never did like me and my mother.
So I never messed around with him much.
But one day I got sick.
So my cousin started talking to him.
He got worried, came over, and wanted to carry me to the doctor.
I said, no, you wait until I got this old to do something for me.
I don't need you to do nothing for me now.
So we speak when we see each other.
And just keep right on going.
Most guys cares a lot about their mothers.
Because see, mothers is on the side with their kids.
And sometimes they is the only one on their side.
I think maybe I'll go in the army and save up enough money to build my mother a home.
I'd like to have something, something like one of them modern houses with a swimming pool in the backyard.
I figured if I build her a home, I would have done my part for her.
Then she won't have to be paying no more rent.
I went to get me this job last week.
It was all arranged.
And the lady had been told I'd been in jail.
But when she asked me what I'd been in jail for, I told her shooting a gun.
Then she got all funny and said the job had been taken.
That's like I was telling you.
If you've been in jail, most people ain't going to give you no chance.
What's the use of keep on going for a job if your record ain't going to let you get one? I'll tell you something, I'm not going to let you get one.
I'll tell you what's the use.
If you don't keep looking for a job, you're going to be walking the streets forever.
What will happen then? Yeah, but you get tired of getting the brush off.
I ain't got the brush off.
In fact, I ain't got more than one brush off.
See, the truth is that some people ain't going to hire you no matter what, even if you didn't have four years of college.
Now, there's a lot of reasons why people won't hire you.
Say if you were a former on this job, and they send me out to you and I show you my card that say I got a record.
Now, what you going to do? Well, I would feel like this.
If you seem to me that you really want to work, I think I would give you a chance to square yourself.
But see, if you're not the boss and you hire me and I mess up, the big boss is going to say to you, what the matter with that boy you hired? He messing up.
Now, you going to take a chance on losing your good job and hiring me? Well, if you don't look suspicious, and I don't get no idea, you don't think people look at you and don't get no suspicious ideas? Man, I'm going to tell you one thing, actually you don't know.
Everybody who sound like they talking straight ain't straight.
People's afraid to take a chance on you because there's been so many boys before you who look like they talking straight, but they ain't.
I guess it all come down to one thing.
You got to be hired to somebody who understand teenagers.
People will hire you if they think you through a gang fight and going to come to work every day on time and do your job.
But if they think you going to get on the job and start some trouble now, they ain't going to hire you.
Most of the boys you see up on the corner, they don't care too much about fighting anymore.
You see, you kind of get tired of living that kind of life because the more you fight, the more you going to hate yourself.
In a way that is.
Because when you fight somebody, next time you see them you might need a favor out of them.
And all you going to get is a bust in the mouth.
Boy, you got a lot to learn about women.
And what you talking about? Now, they care, man.
When you in love with this broad, she's got your nose.
Don't let her know it.
Man, no woman's got me stronger.
No, we saw you with that broad last night.
Yeah, she got your nose wide open.
I ain't going to never let no broad have my nose.
Too many more of them out there, Jack.
If I get married, I'm still going to have me a spare.
You treat people like you want to be treated.
You understand? I mean, they going to treat you like they want to anyhow.
But if you treat them nice, well, they probably treat you nice too.
In them days, I was young.
I liked to fight.
It do me good to fight.
Back in them days, the police was locking me up on the weekend.
They was afraid I was going to start something.
I can't go against the police too much, though.
There's some of them that's good.
The way I feel about it.
They give me a fair shake, I give them one.
You got to know how to treat police.
They is just like a judge.
If you go in that line to the judge, he's going to mess you up the best way he can.
But if I figure if you tell him the truth, he's going to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, but dig it, Jack.
Some cats come up on the corner and putting the boys up along the wall just to get themselves a reputation.
You find me a policeman that come out and roughhouse me on the street, and I'll do everything I can to make his job harder.
Even if I have to go to jail.
I don't know what to do.
I told him he quit school until he told me.
I told him he ain't nothing but a fool.
Right now, if you ain't got no high school education, man, you ain't going to get no worthwhile job.
Back in 58, I wasn't even thinking about no school.
I figured I'd go out and get me a job, get some money, shoveling some dirt.
I was digging foot in foot of these houses.
Man, I got tired of that.
I had to quit that stuff.
I say, look here, man, I ain't working no more.
He said, what's wrong? You digging that dirt out there real good.
When I say, I'm going back to school, he say, you mean you going to school and quit your job? I say, give me that money, and I'll show you what I'm going to do.
I quit.
That stuff was getting me down.
Come home every night, back about to kill me.
Mm -mm, I'd be all messed up.
What I say about school is this.
Get as much education as you can, but don't run out in your fellas for nothing.
What you mean by that? Well, I say if one of the fellas go to school and become a doctor or a lawyer, and then he come out of here and act like he don't know none of his old friends, man, that ain't right.
It ain't no good for a guy who's been gang fighting to get into some money and then move out on his fellas.
But let me ask you this.
Say, for instance, you was planning to be a doctor, and there was another boy interested in being a doctor too.
And he had some boys, some bad boys, and he was running with them.
Would you try to encourage him to run with you, or would you just...
I'd try to encourage him to run with me, and I'd try to encourage his boys to run with me.
Plus, I'd try to encourage myself to run with me.
I'd try to encourage myself to run with me.
Man, we used to jam everything.
Get a little taste of wine, and we'd get the feeling good.
Shoot dice, play cards.
Just having a whole lot of fun.
Just ain't no we be frightened.
That's when the things was really swinging.
Man, you'd never find my mother holding no party.
Mm -mm.
She said she didn't want no hoodlums breaking up her house.
Come on, let's go.
What the people should know is that when you're young, You need some kind of recreation like baseball maybe now you ain't gonna get no young kid to play no baseball Man, why you say that cuz all they gonna do is what they want to do.
You think all they want to do is fight Sure, that's why they do it.
They ain't gonna do nothing.
You don't really want to do at least I don't Oh Vice -Law getting out of the place today.
He's coming home.
He's been doing five years and that's a long time But you think time gonna change that man you think he still ain't gonna be with the fellas There'll be 35 guys getting out in the next two years some of them this month some of them next Now they've been gone a long time, but when they come home, they steal vice -law's time don't change nobody It's the way you treat them.
You gotta give them a fair shake and we've been getting a better shake this year since the whole five years I've been game fighting Every year things change people's beginning to see more about teenagers like this summer not too much happen Next summer not as much gonna happen this did this summer cuz people they begin and understand teenagers but the most important thing for people understand is this as Long as a man is in the club he gonna stick with his fellas cuz nobody can live in this world by themselves Barron Smith and his friends know how to live on the streets they've grown up here, they've made the rules But when time comes for them to leave the corner, where do they go? What do they do? Who will have the patience to help them make the adjustment from the law of the streets to the laws of society?
