Review: ‘The Gangs of Zion’ offers Ron Stallworth’s unique insights into gangs, crack and rap music in a most unexpected setting
Ron Stallworth's new book takes readers back to a culturally significant time in our nation's history. It's the late 1980s and early '90s. Crack cocaine has become a drug of choice for millions. Street gangs like the Bloods and Crips are fighting each other for the drug market and for respect.
Hop-hop music – particularly gangsta rap – gives voice to young people growing up and trying to survive in a country that has often left them behind.
The story of the intersection of crack, gangs and hip-hop is almost always told in the settings of large coastal cities. But Stallworth – a veteran cop who grew up in El Paso and returned in retirement – sets his story in Utah.
"The Gangs of Zion: A Black Cop's Crusade in Mormon Country" shows how late 20th century cultural forces impacted a predominantly white, conservative area. The book is built around a number of investigations Stallworth led while working for the Utah Department of Public Safety.
But "The Gangs of Zion" is more than a police procedural book. Stallworth also documents the unwillingness of political, business and civic leaders in Utah to acknowledge that crack and street gangs had spread to a state dominated by the Mormon church.
Throughout the book, Stallworth butts heads with politicians and his bosses in Utah law enforcement. His primary job is to gain intelligence on the gang and drug situation in Utah, which he does by immersing himself in investigations so he can understand the complexities of the issues.
Stallworth realizes that gangsta rap holds the key to understanding the young people caught up in gangs and crack. And it's not just Utah's small Black population – Hispanics, Polynesians and white Mormon kids also became enamored of musicians like Ice Cube and NWA.
He built an expertise in rap music and testified before Congress several times about the intersection of rap and gang culture. Stallworth is no bleeding heart – the book includes several actions by Stallworth that would draw the ire of civil libertarians – but he finds efforts to censor or mute music as counter-productive. He even rapped a few lyrics before congressional committees.
Stallworth gained fame through Spike Lee's Oscar-winning movie, "BlacKkKlansman," which was adapted from Stallworth's 2014 book "Black Klansman," which explored his undercover investigation of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado.
"The Gangs of Zion" shares some traits with Stallworth's first book when it focuses on undercover investigations and Stallworth's impatience with police brass he holds in contempt. But his new book, published in September by Legacy Lit Books, provides more insight into the author. It is something of a memoir.
Stallworth shares numerous stories from his police career before he arrives in Utah. He talks about how he was shaped by his upbringing in El Paso. And he writes of how he cared for his dying wife as his bosses tried to end his career.
At its root, "The Gangs of Zion" tells the story of a Black police officer who often feels distrusted by the Black community and his fellow cops. But Stallworth comes across as someone comfortable in his own skin who won't change to please others.
That comfort is illustrated in one of the last chapters in "The Gangs of Zion," where Stallworth responds to criticism of "BlacKkKlansman" by film director Boots Riley in a 2018 Twitter thread . The chapter refuted Riley's claims that Stallworth "was part of COINTELPRO," the FBI's program from 1956 to 1971 to target what it considered to be subversive organizations.
Stallworth was a student at El Paso's Austin High School when COINTELPRO ended. In the book, he describes an encounter with Riley at a 2019 awards ceremony.
"People like Riley only see me as a cop – the archenemy of Black people. Blinded by their quest to assert their own Blackness, these radically militant individuals cannot accept me in the 'collective club of Blackness' that requires everyone else's sense of racial identity to pale in comparison with theirs," Stallworth wrote.
The most enlightening chapter in "The Gangs of Zion" deals with Stallworth's relationship with a Crip member named Jemijo, who he met in a Salt Lake City barbershop. Stallworth worked to give Jemijo options outside of gang life.
"Talking with Jemijo not as a gang member but as a young man – without working a case or having an angle – allowed me to become a better cop," Stallworth wrote.
But feeling the Utah Department of Public Safety would not allow him to be the kind of cop he wanted to be, Stallworth retired a short time after engaging Jemijo.
Earlier this month, Jemijo – who goes by Malo Hamilton – reconnected with Stallworth and shared his thoughts in a Facebook post .
"This Honorable Man talked to me in ways no man has ever talked to me, he showed me insight and vision like no man has ever shown me! He poured into a kid that was lost. Everyone knows my father was a well respected O.G from my neighborhood but till this day I see this man as the father I never had," Hamilton wrote.
