The Evangelist: A Screenplay in the making

The Evangelist to the Gangs

A Screenplay by Kenneth Kwame Welsh

July 2004-July 2005


This story is mostly true. It all takes place mostly during a three and half year period starting in 1958, and ending in 1961, in New York City. It covers from the mid-1940's to the mid-1960's.

Some of the most famous Brooklyn gangs of the fifties actually dateback to the 1940s! Some even survived into the late 60s (or longer?).
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Main characters are David Wilkerson, Nicky Cruz, Israel, Stagecoach, Buckwheat
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New York, 1943.
In Harlem, a white policeman shot Negro soldier Robert Bandy in the left shoulder. The policeman had been arresting a Negro woman when Bandy intervened to defend her. Bandy struck the policeman, then turned away and refused an order to halt. Rumors spread that he was shot dead in the back, in the presence of his mother. The New Republic: "New York had another riot in 1935. Mayor LaGuardia appointed a bi-racial commission which held hearings and submitted a report which included recommendations that might have prevented, or at least made less likely and less destructive, the riot of August 1, 1943. But unfortunately, the report was never made public and most of its recommendations were unheeded." (Source: Background Briefing).

* HARLEM Race Riot, 1943. 6 died, and over 500 were injured, more than 100 were jailed.