The Folks Nation is an alliance of street gangs based out of Chicago and has since branched throughout the United States. They are rivals to the People Nation. Within the Folks Nation alliance there are individual gangs or nations called "Mobs" which all have their own unique colors, handsigns, and organization. In the begining, most of these gangs had to sign a charter to join the Folks alliance, but today any independent gang can join the Folks alliance with the permission of a person already part of a gang under the Folks alliance.
The Folks Nation was formed on November 11, 1978 in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The Black Gangster Disciples, under the leadership of Larry Hoover were the first to bring the Folks Nation concept about. The Black Gangster Disciples organized a meeting of several Black, White, and Latino street gangs. Amongst the gangs were the Black Disciples, Spanish Cobras, Imperial Gangsters, Simon City Royals, Latin Eagles, Satan Disciples, and the Latin Disciples. The term "Folks" was said to be chosen as a moniker because of the word being an acronym: "Follow the Orders and Laws the King Sets". The "King", being Larry Hoover, who apparently had a vision to unite and then control all of the gangs in Chicago.
Nations in the Folks allaince show their affiliationn by identifying to the right side, for example, they wear hats with the brim broke to the right, right pants leg rolled up, bandanas hanging out of their right pockets, earings in their right ear, etc.
Gangs that were allied on the streets, easily united in the prisons. For example, the Black Disciples, and Black Gangster Disciples were once the same organization, so it was naturally an easy formation to become part of same alliance. It was also a common occurrence for gangs who had a good relationship with other street gangs, to bring them into their respective alliance. For example, the Simon City Royals have always had a good relationship to the Insane Popes (Northside), therefore, when the Royals joined the Folks alliance, the Popes followed suit.
Contrary to popular belief, real Crips are not part of the Folks Nation Alliance, they are part of the Crips alliance. The confusion of Crips representing the Folks Nation alliance started on the internet with unknown persons creating various fictional “Crip Books of Knowledge” which consist of mixing Crip history and Gangster Disciple history, symbols, and literature (lit) together to form fictional "Crip Books of Knowledge". These fictional “Crip Books of Knowledge” spread rapidly throughout the internet and eventually into the streets with wanna-be’s taking these books seriously. There was, however, a brief cease-fire agreement between Crips and Gangster Disciples in Kansas City Missouri in 1993 called the "8 Ball". They called it the "8 Ball" because of the shape you get when you merge the "C" handsign of the Crips with the "Pitch Fork" handsign of the Gangster Disciples. That cease fire was very brief and the "8 Ball" has been cracked (cease fire dropped), but that cease-fire agreement may have sparked the idea of creating the fictional internet "Crip Books of Knowledge". This misrepresentation of the Crips has largely affected Crips throughout the south and parts of the mid-west. This widespread miseducation of the Crips has lead to a recent major outreach by west coast Crips to all Crips across the country to let them know that Crips do not represent the Folks Nation of Chicago and do not represent the Gangster Disciples 6 point star and lit. This outreach has been making a major impact on Crips in the south and midwest who have all been dropping the use of anything related to the Folks Nation and a 6 point star and are all steady getting back to their roots.
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