The participants of the Urban Leadership Training Program were leaders of five juvenile gangs in an area of West Philadelphia known as Mantua. Their ages ranged from 18 to 23 years. Each gang leader was a public school dropout. Their combined arrest records totaled more than 175 contacts with the law. Most of these arrests were for offenses involving violence, weapon use, and assaultive behavior. Gang leaders viewed violence as an integral part of their life histories, and violent death was an ever-present reality in their world. Several gang leaders expressed doubt that they would live many more years. According to several interviewees, they had been beaten by police officers and had been severely mistreated by prison guards when incarcerated. Violence had other significance for the members of the training group in terms of social relevance. There is an intimate connection between definitions of manhood and experience in violent encounters. This finding was particularly true of black gang leaders. In addition, violent themes were used by the group to interest others in their conversations. With regard to violence as a public issue, although the gang leaders had not read the literature written by white social scientists, they had an intuitive sense that much of the knowledge is false and misleading. They felt that much of what had been written about violence among black adolescents was racist in orientation. Seventeen footnotes and 11 reference sources are provided.