Stone Kents

This story can be told in three parts because three pieces is what the Kents are made of.  I have been very close on the history not long ago but when the Compliments of Chicagohoodz: Chicago Street Gang Art & Culture book came up I was given further insight about the history and dates everything happened and it makes sense.

The “Artistics” street gang is oldest piece of this puzzle.  The Artistics began in 1960 at the intersection of Polk and Laflin in the Near West Side community.  This was an area heavily settled by Italian greaser gangs like the Taylor Street Dukes and several others.  Even though the Dukes and other Italian clubs often took in Mexican members they primarily hated Hispanic gangs and groups of Hispanic kids hanging around.  In the year 1960 the Dukes helped sponsor the creation of the Taylor Street Jousters at Taylor and Ashland which was just two blocks away from Polk and Laflin.  I am not positive if the Artistics formed because of the Jousters or the Dukes but many other black and Hispanic gangs did and the Artistics were very close by the Jousters.  The Artisitics eventually took over the area of Polk street on the north, Roosevelt Road on the south, Loomis Street on the east and Ashland Avenue on the west.

In the year 1966 the Artistics had spread to the Marshall square community at the intersection of 21st and Marshall Boulevard and were perhaps one of the first Hispanic gangs to settle in Marshall square alongside a Puerto Rican migration wave to Marshall Square.  The Artistics clashed with the Latin Kings and Ridgeway Lords then eventually the Two Two Boys when they started in 1976.

The second part of the story is when the Puerto Rican Stones settled at the intersection of 21st and Marshall Boulevard in the year 1976 to join Puerto Rican family members that lived in the area.  This branch of P.R. Stones was unique because they wore the Puerto Rican flag colors of red, white and blue instead of black and orange, the traditional colors.  This branch was started by “Luis.”

Around the same time, about mid-1970s, another crew started up called the “Kents” in the same area but I don’t have much detail on them.

By about 1976, all three of these gangs came together because of their hatred for the Satan Disciples, Two Two Boys, Ridgeway Lords and Latin Kings in the area.

In 1980, the Puerto Rican Stones were growing quite large in numbers and the Kents were having success.  It soon looked like P.R. Stones and Kents would soon grow to exceed the number of Latin Kings in the area as they both continued on a vicious war with the Kings.  The Artistics were not doing as well and beginning to decline, this is when Artistics and Kents merged to created the “Artistic Kents” in 1980.

In the year 1981, the Artistic Kents and P.R.Stones merged to combine forces against their enemies, however, one of those enemies would no longer be the Latin Kings.  In that year of 1981, the People alliance was now to take effect on the streets, not only that, new gangs were accepted into the alliance.  The Puerto Rican Stones were already People in the joint and now they would be on the streets as well and this pretty much squashed their conflict with Latin Kings that had gone on so many years.  Now that Kents and Stones were merging this would take the entire “Artistic Stone Kent nation” into the People alliance and stopped the wars with Latin Kings entirely.  The new colors for this new nation would be black and grey with a knight’s helmet as the symbol.  I don’t know how long the “Artistic” part of the name lasted but it seemed to have vanished shortly after the merger in preference of the name “Stone Kents.”

One of the biggest reasons for the merger of these three organizations was deep family ties.  These Artistics, P.R. Stones and Kents were from the same bloodlines and this is how they all moved into the direct vicinity of each other and called for this merger in 1981.

With the merger the Stone Kents grew very fast and soon took over a very large piece of territory with 21st Street on the north, 24th Street on the south, California Street on the east and Kedzie on the west.  The Kents were very heavily concentrated on 21st and California and 21st and Marshall Blvd within this zone.  Kents were also posted at 27^th Street and Whipple and 23rd and Trumbull in the Little Village area.  The Kents even had a satellite branch at 51st and Ada in the Back of Yards neighborhood which they shared with the 51st and Ada Latin Kings.  A branch also opened in Kenosha Wisconsin and it appeared Kents were well on the way to becoming a large empire in the 1980s.

Kents developed a very strong alliance with the Latin Kings as they battled side by side against the Two Two Boys, Satan Disciples, Two Six and Ambrose.  Kents were also allies with the Cullerton Deuces in the 1980s.  The Kents were at their peak in the mid-1980s.

In the 1980s the Stone Kents were going strong but by the late 1980s members started flipping to Latin Kings until they were eventually just located at 21st and Marshall Blvd by the early 1990s.

By the early 1990s most members had flipped to becoming Latin Kings, by the mid-1990s the Stone Kents went extinct as the remaining members either retired or became Latin Kings.

Please send in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s pics!  If they existed in 60s please send those!

Questions:

1. Who was the founder of the Kents and Artistics? What happened to him?
2. What is the time line of leaders?

Known sections of the Stone Kents of the past

Back of the Yards neighborhood

Sections of the Back of the Yards

51^st & Ada (as Stone Kents shared with Latin Kings)

Little Village neighborhood 80s

Sections of Little Village

27^th & Whipple (La Villita Park as Stone Kents) 80s

21^st to 24^th, Marshall to Kedzie 80s

23^rd & Trumbull 80s

Marshall Square neighborhood Established 1966 as Artistics, Established 1976-90s as Kents

Sections of Marshall Square

21^st & Marshall Established 1966-90s as Artistics (shared with Puerto Rican Stones)

23^rd & Marshall

21st to 24^th, California to Marshall as Stone Kents

21^st & California as Artistics

Near West Side neighborhood Established as Artistics in 1960-1966

Near West Side neighborhood

Polk to Roosevelt, Loomis to Ashland Established 1960-1966 as Artistics