t was the early sixties in New York City. Alfred Hitchcock had already Released Psycho, the first televised presidential debates were held and America was already suffering the shame of the Bay of Pigs. Racial intolerance was still plaguing america and countries abroad. The streets of NYC, in particular the Bronx was no different.
New York was facing grave economic times, with budgets being cut left and right from vital social programs, education and infrastructure. Many New Yorkers didn't know where their next meal would come from, or how to keep a roof over thier heads. These conditions forced many of the areas youth to turn to the streets to find a sense of identity. They found this identity through associations with gangs.
"The Ghetto Brothers lived to serve the community"
Although many of the areas gangs were violent by nature, the Ghetto Brothers started out on that path, but it later on it proved to not be the destiny of its founder, Benjamin Melendez aka Yellow Benjy. He had a dream that his organization could be a positive rather than a negative in the community, to help Blacks and Puerto Ricans live better.
He and his brothers began to re-shape the moniker of the traditional gang member, into something more dignified, community leaders. For too long the youth of New York City were oppressed and subjected to the humiliation of stereotype, and the insallation of the feeling that there could be no success in their inconsequential futures.
Benjy, and his brothers thought differently of the notions of impossilbe triumph, that were so impalled upon them through the vicious nature of such a corrupt persecutorial system. A system that had pretty much written them off as casualties in a class war, where puerto ricans and blacks were considered to be inferior.
For the Melendez Brothers this story isn't a tear jerker by no means, nor do they articulate this story with a sense of empathy, but as a story of overcoming tremendous odds. Also, to become pillars of a community stricken with the disease of negativity which spurs violence and decay in the communities where they called home.
Their story iis a testament to persaverance through struggle and refusing to succumb to the pressures applied to them and their community for so long. These are our American Hereos and they should be respected as such.
- 1960s
- 1964
- 1965
- 1970s
- 1971
- 1979
- 1980s
Benjy's family moved to the Bronx from Manhattan, and e wasn't happy about it. He rebelled against his parents, by continuing to hang out it Manhattan. We then started to explore the streets in the Bronx, and the streets were waiting.
The Ghetto Brothers, especially in their early years, had a reputation as one of the more politically minded and less vengeful of New York-area gangs. After Cornell "Black Benjy" Benjamin was killed in 1971 trying to prevent a fight between two rival gangs, the Ghetto Brothers did not seek the expected revenge on those responsible for his death.
Instead, under Melendez's leadership (and that of Carlos Suarez, also known as Carlos Melendez), they were instrumental in achieving a moderately successful truce among South Bronx and other New York-area gangs at the Hoe Avenue peace meeting which occurred December 8, 1971. Among those present was Afrika Bambaataa, then a 14-year-old Black Spade warlord known on the streets as Bambaataa.
Ghetto Brothers founder Benjamin Melendez, who left the organization in 1976, was also known
as a guitarist. He led a band, also known as the Ghetto Brothers, which included his late brother
Victor Melendez on drums. They released one (self-titled) album in 1972, which had only informal,
local distribution.