Friends Stand United (FSU) is a national organization in the United States which is classified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a street gang, a distinction that FSU members deny. It is an anti-racists group which includes members of various ethnicities, but is predominantly white. Some members share the same Straight Edge lifestyle. The numbers "378" is the numerical symbol, which correspond to the letters FSU on the telephone keypad.
Elgin James founded FSU, which originally stood for "Fuck Shit Up", in the late 1980s in Boston, Massachusetts. He formed FSU to attack, beat and purge drug dealers and violent White supremacist, Neo-nazi and other various racist gangs from punk rock concerts.
FSU has established chapters in many major cities in the United States, Canada and North East England. The group has splintered several times since its initial incarnation, with different chapters holding different values. Universally, the group espouses violence as a valid means to accomplish their goals.
The founding core of FSU eventually splintered, with a large section moving on to motorcycle gangs like the Outlaws. The split was amicable, but James and other founding members decided to leave a more positive legacy and steer FSU away from the criminal world. They established the Foundation Fund, which set up scholarships at local universities (Berklee College of Music and Suffolk University Law School) in the names of FSU members who had died. The fund also holds yearly benefit concerts to raise money for charities that reflect "hardcore punk culture" (teen homelessness, anti-gun violence, suicide prevention and local orphanages). James currently denies involvement with FSU, however he was arrested on July 14, 2009 on extortion charges relating to his affiliation with the group five years prior.
James and FSU were mentioned on National Geographic TV and the History Channel's Gangland series, and covered in Rolling Stone magazine.
Famous quotes containing the words friends, stand and/or united:
“Don’t make friends with people you don’t know.”
—Chinese proverb.
“If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)