SONNY BARGER
Without the talents and leadership of Ralph “Sonny” Barger, it is unlikely that the Hells Angels (Barger dropped the apostrophe as it wouldn’t fit on the gang’s “colours”) would have the reputation and prominence that they do today. His charisma and media savvy led to the Angels being portrayed as outlaw legends by both Hunter SThompson and Tom Wolfe, abetting their ultimately disastrous relationship with the Sixties counterculture that mistakenly viewed anything “outlaw” as having common cause with them. This ignored the inconvenient fact that Hells Angels routinely physically attacked anti-Vietnam war protesters, whom they dubbed “Peace Creeps” and that Barger had volunteered the Angels to fight as “gorillas” in that conflict. In 2000 Barger also said: “The club, as a whole, is not racist, but we probably
