Benjamin Melendez, Gang Member Who Built Truce Between Harlem And South Bronx, Dies At 65

HARLEM, NY — Benjamin "Yellow Benjy" Melendez, a former leader of the South Bronx-based Ghetto Brothers, has died of kidney failure at the age of 65, according to multiple reports.

Melendez is best-known for setting up the 1971 Hoe Avenue peace meeting, which established a truce between rival gangs in Harlem and the South Bronx. Later in his life, Melendez became a social activist and took up the cause of Puerto Rican nationalism, Democracy Now! reported.

On December 8, 1971, the Ghetto Brothers held a meeting at the Hoe Avenue Boys & Girls Club attended by representatives of some of New York City's most prominent street gangs. The meeting was held to call for peace days after Ghetto Brothers member Cornell "Black Benjy" Benjamin was murdered, according to a 2011 Daily News article.

By the end of the three hour meeting, an agreement to avoid all-out street warfare was made. The truce lasted throughout the 70s, preventing much street violence, but ended when the crack epidemic struck the city, according to the Daily News.

"It was tense in the beginning, you could feel it," Melendez told the Daily News in 2011. "But we had to let the steam out. All the turf wars had to stop."

Author Amir Said, who co-authored Melendez’s memoir, called the Ghetto Brothers leader a "transformative figure" in an interview with HipHopDx. Said told the hip hop publication that Melendez and the Ghetto Brothers played a role "in paving the path for Hip Hop to grow and prosper."

"He went from street gang leader to social activist and inspired everyone around him. He stood as a social activist, a musician, and a friend to many in the 1970s South Bronx — what was then the worst urban area in the United States."

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