The Verse - Volume 18
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Purple Particulars – Detroit's Infamous Purple Gang

During Prohibition, bootleggers used the frozen Detroit River to get booze from Canada into the United States. From Detroit, liquor went to Chicago, St. Louis, and points west. In the 1920s, the Detroit River, along with the rest of Detroit, belonged to the Purple Gang, a group of killers and thugs as vicious and bloodthirsty as any New York or Chicago gangsters.

The sons of Russian Jewish immigrants, the gang received its colorful name as the result of a conversation between two shopkeepers of the era. Both of the men's shops had been the target of the young gang’s shoplifting and vandalism. One day in disgust one of the shopkeepers exclaimed, "These boys are not like other children of their age, they're tainted, off color."

"Yes," replied the other shopkeeper. "They're rotten, purple like the color of bad meat, they're a Purple Gang."

The boys were led by four brothers – Abe, Joe, Ray and Izzy Bernstein. They originally were shakedown artists and jewel thieves, but thanks to Prohibition and the convenient location of Detroit, they moved up to armed robbery, hijacking, extortion, and other strong-arm work. They became notorious for their high profile manner of operation and their savagery in dealing with enemies.

The Purple Gang ran the rackets in Detroit for much of the 1920s and early 30s. Detroit was not New York, but that doesn’t mean the Purple Gang wasn’t tough. They were strong enough to keep Al Capone out of eastern Michigan and managed to hold on to control of most of the state when Capone was at his peak. Capone coveted Detroit, with its huge number of hardworking, hard-drinking laborers, but he decided it was better to buy booze from the Purple Gang than to fight them.

Find out more about the Purple Gang in this article from The Detroit News. http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=183&category=life