The Chambers Brothers were a street gang heavily involved in the distribution of crack cocaine in the city of Detroit, Michigan during the 1980s. The brothers became notorious nationally when the Detroit Police Department confiscated video tapes of the brothers counting their laundry baskets full of money, and flaunting their excessive wealth, contributing to United States President Bill Clinton's denouncing of former first lady Nancy Reagan's anti-drug policy. A pile of crack cocaine ‘rocks’. Crack cocaine is a form of cocaine. ... Nickname: Motto: Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus (Latin for, We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes) Location in Wayne County, Michigan Coordinates: , Country United States State Michigan County Wayne County Founded 1701 Incorporation 1806 Government  - Type Strong Mayor-Council  - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) Area  - City  143. ... For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins on July 6, 1921) is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. ...

Origins

Originally from an economically depressed and racially segregated county in Arkansas, Lee County, the brothers came to Detroit individually to find legitimate work in the early in 1980s. This pattern of migration from the rural South to the industrial North, especially by African-Americans, had helped to build Detroit in the post World War II decades of Fordism. High employment and wages attracted southern blacks to the manufacturing center of Detroit, but by the end of the 1970s, one third of the city’s residents were living below the poverty line, and the manufacturers who had built the city, had left for the suburban communities untouched by the legacy of the 12th Street Riot and related economic stress furthered by the Coleman Young administration’s policies. Moreover, a large portion of the residents were becoming introduced to a cheaper form of cocaine, called crack, which was sold in five and ten dollar denominations. Thus cocaine, once considered a drug of the wealthier classes, was made accessible to persons of every social-economic background. mtDNA-based chart of large human migrations. ... Languages Predominantly American English Religions Predominantly Christianity and Islam Related ethnic groups Sub-Saharan Africans and other African groups, some with Native American groups. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Fordism is a form of production or production paradigm that prevailed in post-war decades (and perhaps even before second world war) in western industrial countries. ... Map of countries showing percentage of population who have an income below the national poverty line The poverty line is the level of income below which one cannot afford to purchase all the resources one requires to live. ... The riot featured on the cover of the August 4, 1967 edition of Time magazine. ... Coleman Alexander Young (May 24, 1918 – November 29, 1997) served as mayor of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan from 1974 to 1994. ... Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. ...

One of the Chambers brothers had purchased a ‘party store ’- the name used to describe a ‘convenience’, ‘corner’, or ‘liquor’ store in Detroit- near Kercheval and St Clair streets on the east side. Besides cigarettes, cold beer and potato chips, the store sold small bags of home grown marijuana. When one of the Chambers brother was told how to turn powdered cocaine into crack, thus multiplying its street sale value, the party store switched from selling marijuana to crack. Within a few short months the Chambers brothers had so many crack customers they began to occupy homes across the city to use as crack sales centers as well as places of prostitution. As reported in the BET documentary, entire apartment blocks were taken over to eliminate the long lines of customers outside traditional single-family homes. Additionally, the organization was so feared in the community, it was not unusual for the drug dealers to actually enter occupied dwellings for days at a time to sell crack, forcing single mothers and their children, totally unrelated to the drug dealers or the drug traffic, to comply with the dealers demands, or flee until the drug trafficking had moved elsewhere. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Convenience store. ... A Cannabis sativa plant The drug cannabis, also called marijuana, is produced from parts of the cannabis plant, primarily the cured flowers and gathered trichomes of the female plant. ... Whore redirects here. ... Bet may refer to: Look up bet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Northern European single-family home A sample floorplan of a single-family home A single-family home is a free-standing residential building, generally found in the suburbs of cities, the exurban region and rural areas. ...

The spread of crack use in Detroit happened so rapidly the police, FBI and federal Department of Justice were ineffective in combating the relatively organized and sophisticated methods employed by the Chambers Brothers organization. Reportedly, this was furthered by the pay off of many Detroit Police Officers, as Larry Chambers claimed in a letter from prison. The group was extremely violent, yet retained a large number of employees by recruiting rural youth in Marianna, Arkansas. The Chambers Family also traced their roots back to Arkansas as well as Tennessee. These rural recruits had little knowledge about Detroit before becoming employed in the trade and were so dependent on the drug dealers for life’s necessities that they could not easily flee the circumstances they found themselves in. But it was the notoriety of the confiscated video tapes aired repeatedly on Detroit television that really brought an end to the organization. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C. Justice Department redirects here. ... Marianna is a city located in Lee County, Arkansas. ... Official language(s) English Capital Little Rock Largest city Little Rock Area  Ranked 29th  - Total 53,179 sq mi (137,002 km²)  - Width 239 miles (385 km)  - Length 261 miles (420 km)  - % water 2. ... Official language(s) English Capital Nashville Largest city Memphis Largest metro area Nashville Area  Ranked 36th  - Total 42,169 sq mi (109,247 km²)  - Width 120 miles (195 km)  - Length 440 miles (710 km)  - % water 2. ...

Video Tapes

The tapes were happened upon accidentally in a crack house raid in 1988 and leaked to local media which broadcast them on local television. The story garnered more national attention when the then-Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, mentioned the Chambers brothers, originally from an Arkansas family of fourteen children, while nominating Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. Clinton cited the poverty of the region in his own state, and the flourishing crack trade in the poorer sections of urban America, as reasons for doubting the merit of Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ anti-drug campaign. Crack house is an off campus residence in Northfield, Minnesota housing students of Carleton College and migrant roofers. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... Official language(s) English Capital Little Rock Largest city Little Rock Area  Ranked 29th  - Total 53,179 sq mi (137,002 km²)  - Width 239 miles (385 km)  - Length 261 miles (420 km)  - % water 2. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... Michael Stanley Dukakis (born November 3, 1933) is an American Democratic politician, former Governor of Massachusetts, and the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. ... The 1988 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia from July 18–21, 1988 to select a candidate for the 1988 United States presidential election. ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... Nancy Davis Reagan (born Anne Frances Robbins on July 6, 1921) is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. ... Mrs. ...

The complexity of the Chambers organization was so poorly understood by law enforcement and the justice system in the years of their explosive growth several Chambers brothers, including the kingpins, had been arrested in crack house raids and charged with simple possession like an average user. This is possibly why the Chambers did not flee when it became apparent they would face charges. The BET documentary quotes DEA officials claiming that several bothers did not know the difference between state and federal charges and the extent to how much time they would do behind bars. The gang leaders were arrested when heavy Reagan administration mandatory sentencing was first being imposed. Ultimately, nine members of the organization were convicted and imprisoned, but the legacy of the Chambers Brothers was felt in other cities since so many of the underlings in the group escaped attention and left Detroit to replicate the criminal methods elsewhere. Members of The Chambers Family are considered to operate like an Italian Mob, armed and dangerous. The Chambers Family still has a heavy presence in Memphis, TN today. DEA is an abbreviation of the following, among others: Dance Educators of America Drug Enforcement Administration (USA) TheDEA.org, a harm reduction web site. ... Ronald Wilson Reagan, GCB (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). ... A mandatory sentence is a judicial decision setting the punishment to be inflicted on a person convicted of a crime where judicial discretion is limited by law. ... City nickname: The River City or The Bluff City Location in the state of Tennessee County Shelby County, Tennessee Area  - Total  - Water 763. ...

Cultural effects

In the novel Warpath by Jeffry Scott Hansen the street gang The Six-Mile Syndicate is based loosely on the Chambers Brothers Gang. In the 1991 Film New Jack City, the character Nino Brown is largely based on the real life Detroit gang The Chambers Brothers. Nino had also made a name for the group as "Cash Money Brothers". Also, The Chambers Brothers were known for having their own building to move their drugs, in New Jack City it was known as "The Carter". Warpath is a 2003 novel (ISBN 0970919115), LCCN 2002090189 the second book by American author Jeffry Scott Hansen, published by Spectre Publishing, and set in Detroit, Michigan. ... For the Father Ted episode, see New Jack City (Father Ted). ...

External links

• B.E.T. American Gangster first aired in January 9, 2007 BET's American Gangster.
• Time magazine article from 1988 describing the gang. TIME: I'm going to Detroit!
• Land of Opportunity: One Family's Quest for the American Dream in the Age of Crack, Adler, William M. [1].