My understanding is that the real murder case which inspired that Black Legion movie was of a French Canadian accused of mistreating his (Protestant) wife. You don’t hear a lot of bigotry toward French Canadians these days, but maybe that just reflects where they live (Maine?) vs where I hear about. Nor would people at the time have perceived any conflict between being white supremacists (which isn’t really the issue for anti-Catholicism) and opposing fascism. The southern U.S still had Jim Crow, but was also the most belligerent pro-intervention part of the country.
In the 50s, youth gangs often did just care about “turf” rather than, say, controlling the distribution of drugs. The drug trade REALLY changed things, so that people at the top stayed there rather than aging out (as had been the norm earlier). Now that police (using things like RICO) have broken up big gangs, many of the micro-gangs now are just beefing over turf again, though more lethally than in the 50s. https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2016/Chicago-Gangs/
Of course I know “I Alone” by Live! And I still laugh thinking about the story of someone wondering who would sing “Lightning Crashes” at a karaoke bar in LA… and it turned out to be Ed Kowalczyk.
My understanding is that the real murder case which inspired that Black Legion movie was of a French Canadian accused of mistreating his (Protestant) wife. You don’t hear a lot of bigotry toward French Canadians these days, but maybe that just reflects where they live (Maine?) vs where I hear about. Nor would people at the time have perceived any conflict between being white supremacists (which isn’t really the issue for anti-Catholicism) and opposing fascism. The southern U.S still had Jim Crow, but was also the most belligerent pro-intervention part of the country.
In the 50s, youth gangs often did just care about “turf” rather than, say, controlling the distribution of drugs. The drug trade REALLY changed things, so that people at the top stayed there rather than aging out (as had been the norm earlier). Now that police (using things like RICO) have broken up big gangs, many of the micro-gangs now are just beefing over turf again, though more lethally than in the 50s.
https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2016/Chicago-Gangs/
Of course I know “I Alone” by Live! And I still laugh thinking about the story of someone wondering who would sing “Lightning Crashes” at a karaoke bar in LA… and it turned out to be Ed Kowalczyk.