Biography
Jeff Fort was born on February 20, 1947 in Aberdeen, Mississippi. He moved with his family to the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago in 1955. He dropped out of school after the fourth grade.
Fort spent time at Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center and at the Illinois State Training School for Boys in St. Charles, where he met Eugene "Bull" Hairston. Around 1959, Fort and Hairston formed the Blackstone Rangers gang at St. Charles. The Blackstone Rangers originated as a small youth gang along Blackstone Avenue in the Woodlawn area, assembled to defend themselves against other gangs in the South Side. Hairston was the gang's leader with Fort as second in command. The Rangers fought rival gangs, especially the Devil's Disciples.
During the early 1960s, Fort earned the nickname "Angel" for his ability to solve disputes and form alliances between the Rangers and other gangs. By the mid 1960s, Fort assembled a coalition of 21 gangs with about 5,000 members. He organized the coalition under a governing body called the "Main 21", composed of 21 gang leaders or "generals." As the Ranger organization grew, it became involved in community and political activism. The gang also received support from Presbyterian minister Reverend John Fry who advised Hairston and Fort how to manage their organization.
Under Rev. Fry's guidance, Fort obtained a charter from the State of Illinois to form a political organization, Grassroots Independent Voters of Illinois, in 1967. Fort's organization applied for and received a US$1 million federal grant from the now-defunct Office of Economic Opportunity to fund a program to teach job skills to gang members. The Rangers also received grants and loans from private foundations. Unlike many gangs, the Blackstone Rangers were not considered outsiders but had been largely accepted by Chicago society, with Jeff Fort even receiving an invitation from President Richard Nixon, following the 1968 election to attend the 1969 inaugural ball. (Fort declined this invitation, sending his "top man" Mickey Cogwell and one of his "generals" in his stead to the 1969 inauguration).
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