![\"Willie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/willie.jpg?resize=426%2C311&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Willie “Vice” McLeod of the El Kovons Gang Red Hook 1950s<\/p><\/div>\n
Vice’s mother Tinella was a domestic in the South, and she moved to NYC “to make a living for the children.” She was a small lady, plainly dressed and had a neat appearance. When she was seen in court, she carried her Bible which she quoted from.\u00a0 Tinella was a member of the St. John’s Fire-Baptized Holiness Church on 1016 Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She was a preacher at the church.<\/p>\n
Tinella died of rheumatic heart on Jul.9, 1957, so Willie was left to the care of his Aunt Flossie. She was also from the south and after her sister died, she moved into the home to take care of Willie and his sister.\u00a0 She was also a meticulous woman who kept an extraordinarily clean home.\u00a0 Flossie was a spinster and similar to her sister Tinella when it came to religion: religiously fervent and a member of the St. John’s Fire-Baptized Holiness Church. She was rigid in her attitudes and very strict and demanding of a code that was acceptable to the church.<\/p>\n
Flossie was concerned about Willie’s behavior (such as keeping late hours) and escapades which had them on the verge of being kicked out of the Red Hook Houses. From his point of view, Willie had an “underlying resentment towards his aunt which may be ‘explosive.'” He expressed his anger to his aunt for her demands of him of a code of conduct which he couldn’t keep.<\/p>\n
Another area of friction between Aunt Flossie and Vice was that she didn\u2019t like his friends and forbade him from bringing them home. When she was away, he did it anyway.<\/p>\n
What seemed to set Aunt Flossie off was when Willie was beaten up by an alleged member of the “Sioux” gang. A couple months after this he was hit by a bottle thrown through the window of a store for which he received cuts requiring treatment at the hospital.\u00a0 Willie blamed both of these incidents on \u201cracial friction\u201d (which could have been true as well as being a gang fight). Then, on Feb.24, 1958, Aunt Flossie intercepted a letter sent to her nephew signed by \u201cLash and Jackson,\u201d who identified themselves as members of the Bishops and El Kovons.\u00a0 The letter was written from the Youth House in the Bronx (a detention-type center for youth) and both Lash and Jackson anticipated celebrating \u201cwith some wine\u201d with Vice later on when they returned home.\u00a0 The letter also contained lewd language, although I don\u2019t know what it said.\u00a0 For his part, Willie denied being either a member of the El Kovons or the Bishops and that he was just friends with them and that they were younger boys who were trying to impress him as being \u201cbig men.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willie\u2019s denials of being in a gang are weak.\u00a0 To strengthen the case that he was a member of the El Kovons, two bullets were found in his room by his Aunt Flossie on Jun 24, 1957.\u00a0 Then later in the year in December, 1957 she found a sharpening stone and knife in his room and overheard a discussion between him and a pal about a fight.<\/p>\n
Willie said he found the two bullets on the street and brought them home out of curiosity.\u00a0 As for the sharpening stone he had that for sharpening a small pen knife that he owned (which was the knife his aunt found).\u00a0 In regards to the fight, he said that he wasn\u2019t involved in it and that he was \u201cjust discussing it.\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t see anything wrong with his nickname \u201cVice,\u201d which his friends called him and which he cut into his left forearm leaving a scar.<\/p>\n
All of this to finally get to the point about his religion.\u00a0 Willie attended St. John\u2019s Fire-Baptized Holiness church on 1016 Fulton Street with his mother.\u00a0 According to her, Willie attended church there on Sunday as well as on Friday evenings. This is where he was \u201cfire-baptized.\u201d However, after his mother passed and he lived with Aunt Flossie, he had no interest in church because it was so strict.\u00a0 According to him, he was admonished not to dance, smoke, date or chew gum.\u00a0 He could not follow such a rigid code of conduct because no one else behaved this way.\u00a0 He also did not attend church because he lacked the proper clothing to dress well.<\/p>\n
I looked up 1016 Fulton Street to see what it looks like to today and amazingly the same church is still there!\u00a0 The name on the front plainly says \u201cSt. John\u2019s F.B.H. Church Inc.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"1016](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/1016-Fulton-St.jpg?resize=640%2C663&ssl=1\")
<\/a>1016 Fulton Street St. John\u2019s F.B.H. Church Inc.<\/p><\/div>\n
If I were to make a guess on Willie\u2019s demise, I don\u2019t think it ended well.\u00a0 I lose track of him after he was sentenced to a reformatory for three years (the authorities identified him as a member of the El Kovons and the Bishops) and he got out on parole.\u00a0 While on parole he was caught with a hypodermic needle; it looked like he was hooked on heroin.\u00a0 He made the usual denials about it, but beating heroin is extremely difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you know what it means to get “fire-baptized” at a church?\u00a0 I went to a Pentecostal-type church when I was younger, and heard of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, but never “fire baptism.” Doing some research on a … Continue reading