Developed from self-defense against the whites, the lust for battle and pillage has become a menace to the respectable Negroes. No colored gangster will stoop to work. Once he belongs, he must make his living with his fists and weapons or he must have a woman support him. Harlem is probably the only community on earth where the women earn more money than do the men. Thousands of them are employed as servants and others do well plying less savory trades. It is regarded as manly and superior for a man to be kept, and to prove his masculinity he is expected occasionally to beat his woman to show her who is master. The younger thugs, who have not reached that lofty estate, but who must not attempt to be Alger boys, bluntly live by robbery. In some sections a Negro boy or girl not belonging to a powerful gang scarcely dares leave home with a nickel. In addition to being despoiled, they are frequently manhandled. As a result, many Negro families have sent their children to New Jersey and Long Island and even back south of the Mason and Dixon Line because of the intolerable abuses from their own race. In fact, Congressman Powell, whose district comprises Harlem, and his actress wife spend most of their time on Long Island. Powell, a light-skinned, but professional Negro and bleeding heart, and Mrs. Powell--Hazel Scott--ride in a chauffeur-driven Cadillac limousine. Miss Scott was cited as a left-winger by the Un-American Activities committee. On his own statement, a 13-year-old Negro boy, who held up a white schoolteacher at gun point and was caught while fleeing, a clasp knife in his hand and his .32-calibre revolver in his belt, was a member of the Purple Cross gang, with a hangout at 114th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. He was ambitious to join the Turks, a gang of older boys. He was told he would have to prove he was tough enough. The Turk leaders gave him the gun and told him to pull a stick-up--"then come back and we'll see about taking you in." One juvenile Harlem gang has another test--before a tyro can be accepted as a full member, he must commit a rape! The Negroes took merciless punishment in the big depression. And the recovery was slow for them. By 1940 they were angry and sullen. Then hell broke loose, fomented by meddlesome agitators of both races. A bloody and paralyzing race riot exploded. The police, suddenly allowed to wade in with night-sticks, finished it quickly. But the causes could not be clubbed down. The resentment and bitterness went underground, to emerge through influences described above, but with few flare-ups because the whites virtually quit going to Harlem. For months, no taxi driver would take whites to Harlem destinations, and some even refused to drive through the district. Even today few white hackmen will take you to a Harlem number or answer a hail in that region.