Name: Miles Gaymon

Social Justice Group: Gang violence in NYC (C)

Date of Fieldwork: January 28, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Fighting Gang Culture on NYC Streets

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

On January 28th me and my partners watched an important documentary on gang violence in New York. We learned some important facts and statistics about gang violence. we learned about people and groups that worked to stop gang violence. The most important group we learned about were the Guardian Angels.
The Guardian Angels were a group of people who fought against gangs. They had nothing to do with the NYPD or the goverment. The leader and founder of the Guardan Angels was Curtis Silwa. He was inspired to make the Guardian Angels because he experienced gang violence a lot and wanted to make a change. He was constantly peer presured to join gangs and it got to the point that he would thrive as a gang member. This is why he created the Guardian Angels.
As the Guardian Angels began to grow members the state goverment started to hate them. They even started arresting and killing them sometimes. By 1976 the Guardian Angels were over 1000 strong and growing so the goverment couldnt stop them. The Guardian Angels steped in to protect the city when the police could not.
They became a memorable group of people who fought against opression and violence putting their life on the line and will never be forgoten.