Active: c. 1918-c. 1932

Made up of the children of poor Jewish immigrants, the Purple Gang started out as a small band of street thugs. But with the prohibition of the sale of liquor in Michigan, the gang rose to the top of the Detroit underworld.

Little Jerusalem

The Purple Gang was considered to be one of the most ruthless and violent gangs of the Prohibition era (when the Eighteenth Amendment outlawed the manufacture and sale of liquor from 1919 to 1933). Most of the original members came from the lower east side of Detroit, Michigan. The area—a ghetto referred to as “Little Jerusalem” because of the number of Jewish immigrants who lived there—was impoverished, crime-ridden, and plagued by violence. Prior to 1918, the gang consisted entirely of Jewish youths. Most were the children of hard-working Russian Jews who had recently immigrated...