Here in New York City, Benjamin “Yellow Benjy” Melendez, a gang leader who brokered a historic peace deal between rival gangs in the Bronx and Harlem, has died at the age of 65. Melendez was a Puerto Rican nationalist who was radicalized by a young member of the Black Panthers. In 1971, he was the leader of the Ghetto Brothers gang when one of the gang’s members was murdered. In response, Melendez called for the historic Hoe Avenue peace meeting, which de-escalated gang violence in New York City for at least a decade.