Undertaker Vice Lords - Chicago Gang History

Founded	Founded c. 1970 by Eddie Richardson in or near Austin
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Primary ethnicities	African American
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Status	Active

The Undertaker Vice Lords were formed in the year 1970 in the southern part of the Austin neighborhood. The Undertaker Vice Lords started right around the Cicero Avenue settlement of some of the first black families in the neighborhood. This Vice Lord faction was started by Eddie “Hi Neef” Richardson who was only 14 years old at the time. The UTVLs formed somewhere on Cicero Ave between Gladys and Flournoy, a strip they would eventually own exclusively in later years. Eddie Richardson was the first “King” of the organization alongside his second in command Carmen “Redman” Tate who was 15 when the Undertakers were formed. These two men set up the first generation of UTVLs and by 1972 there was already a second generation forming of boys as young at 9 years old and as old as 13 years old.

In the year 1971, the Undertaker Vice Lords joined the “Insane” alliance alongside Insane Vice Lords, Cicero Insane Vice Lords and Central Insane Vice Lords, this was because Undertakers are “first cousins” of the Cicero Insane Vice Lords.

The second generation made some noise outside of Louis Armstrong Elementary School (5345 W Congress Pkwy) when they extorted students for lunch money, bus money and welfare stamps outside the school in exchange for not being beaten up. Students were taxed on a weekly basis and one student told police in 1973 that he was taxed $2 a week and had to steal his mom’s food stamps to pay the Undertakers according to the Chicago Tribune April 24, 1973, article. In that article Undertakers were arrested that were only 10 and 11 years old. This extortion operation was shut down at least for a while after the arrests were made.

Undertaker Vice Lords eventually got hooked into the drug trade and began selling heroin and cocaine in large quantities. In the year 1984, UTVLs became very big in the brown heroin business as they began a very lucrative business at the intersection of Congress Parkway and Cicero Avenue. This was a prime location because customers could get right off the Eisenhower Expressway and travel just a few blocks north. UTVLs operated at the Courtway building at this intersection for years and sold kilos of heroin from 1984 to 1990 according to court documents. Eddie Richardson was pinned as the king of this operation alongside co-founder Carmen Tate. Richardson had graduated to the rank of “Universal Elite” within the entire Vice Lord nation and was the Chief of the UTVLs. UTVLs also sold crack cocaine at the “Highway Beef Stand” at Gladys and Cicero Ave. There was also another drug spot out of a building at Laramie and Van Buren where you could buy heroin. It was also said that 3rd generation King Kerry Dockery was involved in the drug trade and 4th generation leader Joseph Westmorland. Eventually Richardson, Tate and Dockery were all charged with drug conspiracy in 1994, and Tate and Richardson were convicted in 1995 given life sentences while Dockery was acquitted (Source: United States vs. Richardson).

In the year 1990, the “Insane” alliance was no more because the Central Insane Vice Lords became the “Mafia Insane Vice Lords” and the majority of the rest of the “Insanes” flipped to Mafia Insanes and the Undertakers were no exception; however, not all Undertakers flipped and Undertakers still remained at from Jackson Blvd on the north to Flournoy Street on the south to Kilbourn Avenue on the east to Cicero Ave on the west in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.

Even though the busts in 1994 hurt operations of UTVLs they continued operations along the Cicero Ave corridor keeping Austin as their primary and possible only neighborhood, I am not sure if UTVLs operated anywhere else accept a section in the K-Town part of North Lawndale along 16th Street from Kedvale to Komensky.

The Understakers may still be active in Chicago.