Gang colors
Gang colors include clothing, accessories, or tattoos of a specific color or colors that represent an affiliation to a specific gang or gang branch.
History
England
The first recorded criminal street gangs in England were organized in London in the early 1600s and identified and apprehended by an early form of British city police, the Bow Street Runners. Early urban gangs in London and other British cities of this period went by the names of the Muns, Mohocks, Hectors, Bawcubites, Bickers, Bugles, Blues, Bravadoes, Tittyre Tus, Tuquoques, Roysters, Scowrers, Dead Boys, Circling Boys, and Roaring Boys with each gang distinguishing its membership affiliation by using a different colored ribbon attached to their clothing.United States
The earliest criminal street gangs in the United States, who were in New York City and were politically aligned with one or the other of the two prominent political parties at the the anti-immigrant Nativist, Know Nothing Party, or the Irish immigrant-based Tammany Hall of the Democratic Partywore distinctive gang colors to differentiate themselves from their allies and rivals. The most notorious and prominent of the New York gangs who could field 50–200 members per gang were the Nativist Bowery Boys, Atlantic Guards, and Plug Uglies versus the Irish American gangs of the Dead Rabbits, Roach Guards, and Shirt Tails.The Roach Guards wore a blue stripe on their trousers and the Atlantic Guards and Dead Rabbits wore a red trouser stripe. The Bowery Boys wore neckerchiefs, red shirts, tall stove pipe hats, long, black, frock coats, and trousers tucked into high heel calf boots to identify them with their New York City Fire Department volunteer fire company origins and Nativist affiliations.