The Gang Leader's Last
Rumble
He was a black preacher's kid in the Harlem ghetto, a rectangle two-and-one-half miles long and a mile wide, into which were crammed over a million poor people. His playground was a vacant lot with shattered bottles, rusty cans, and an abandoned car. He knew about the rats that gnawed on black babies in rundown tenements where people paid outrageous rents to absentee landlords. He saw racketeers paying off the police. He was aware of the hordes of welfare children growing up without fathers. Drugs, gambling, extortion, rape, murder, sex crimes, robbery, stench, and ever-present poverty were the everyday sights, sounds, and smells of his growing up.
Tom Skinner joined the church at seven and was as faithful as the church mouse. After a while he began to choke on the emotional laundromat that passed for worship. He got to where he could predict every word and motion of the pastor, people, and choir. He discovered the two-facedness of many church members and ministers. He heard preachers bragging about their women and the amount received in the offerings.
He grew resentful and rebellious.
The black nationalists began explaining Christianity to Tom as they saw it. "The white man uses it to keep
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Negroes in their place," they said. They inferred that any right-thinking black would reject Christianity as "neocolonialist" and "out of date" and get the "honkies" off his neck. White Christians, they argued, preached to blacks about love, while denying them the right to fair employment and escape from the ghetto.
At the peak of his resentment, Tom was invited to join the gang called the Harlem Lords and take the initiation test.
They tied his hands in front and hung him from a giant spike. After ripping off his shirt, a tall gang member lashed him with a leather whip until he was almost unconscious. Because he took the beating without crying out, Tom was made a member.
After six weeks of fighting with other gangs and petty stealing, he challenged the head of the Lords to a knife duel. They squared off in a garbage-strewn alley, and after several feints and thrusts, Tom slipped a knife into his opponent's side.
For the next two years he reigned as undisputed leader of one of the most feared gangs in New York City. He led them in fifteen big rumbles, and they never lost. They were under his absolute control. If he told one to go home and steal from his mother, he would do it.
Tom's hatred for whites increased until he could not stand to be near someone of another race. He blamed whites for every problem of blacks. He took out his frustration against the dominant society by stealing and destroying property.
At church he played the role of a model boy. He memorized verses with the rest of the young people and recited the cliches his folks wanted to hear. Behind
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the masquerade he felt pity and disgust for the church people.
The chance came for the Lords to become the most powerful gang in Harlem — if they could help win the biggest gang war of Tom's career.
The rumble would pit five gangs — the Lords, the Imperials, the Crowns, the Sportsmen, and the Jesters — against an alliance of gangs from the other side of the city. Over three thousand young toughs would be involved. And Tom was assigned to plan strategy for his side.
He sat mulling over his plans while half listening to his favorite disc jockey spin rock-and-roll records in the background. There was a station break at nine o'clock, and to his dismay a gospel program came on. He swore softly and banged his fist.
An honor student in school, Tom noticed that the radio preacher had atrocious grammar. He was also emotional, an approach to religion Tom despised. He thought of changing the station, but somehow felt compelled to listen.
The uneducated preacher quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
Tom had heard the Scripture a hundred times. But he had been so impressed as the preacher hurled a challenge. "It doesn't matter who you are or what you have done," he said. "Christ came to earth to change your sinful nature. He is your answer. He can straighten out the mess you've made of your life. He will change that 'factory' inside that makes you sin."
As the man preached, Tom argued back in his mind,
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recalling all the reasons he knew for rejecting Christianity. The Holy Spirit demolished them one by one, and before the program ended, the young gang leader had to admit that he was a phony who had never put God to the test.
He bowed his head and prayed simply. "Lord, I don't understand all about You and the Bible. But if what this preacher says is true, forgive my sins and change my life."
No lights flashed, no thunder roared; he simply accepted God's promises as given and became a new man.
The acid test came when he faced one hundred twenty-nine Harlem Lords and told them what had happened. He fully expected Mop, the number two man in the gang, so named because of his practice of mopping up blood with his foot, to put a knife in his ribs. But no one raised a hand against him.
Two nights later he saw Mop on the street. "I was gonna really cut you up, Tom," he said. "But Somebody held me back."
Mop was Tom Skinner's first convert, but certainly not his last. After winning several other gang members to Christ, Tom became a noted evangelist and is today the foremost speaker for young black evangelicals.
Militant for Christ, he has attracted support from a wide spectrum of church leaders, both black and white.
Billy Graham believes "God has a unique work" for him. Congressman John B. Anderson, a white moderate, thinks, "Some may be upset by his portrayal of Christ as a revolutionary. Those who really ponder his message," the Congressman adds, "will see that there is no gap between New Testament Christianity and a
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genuine solution to some of the most vexing problems of our times, such as racial reconciliation."
Melvin Banks, a black publisher of Sunday school curriculum, declares: "Tom insists that Christ invades the racial turmoil not to 'take sides' but to 'take charge.' "
