The Outlaws Motorcycle Club, incorporated as the American Outlaws Association or its acronym, A.O.A., is an international outlaw motorcycle club. Founded in McCook, Illinois in 1935, the Outlaws MC is the oldest outlaw biker club in the world. With 275 chapters located in 23 countries, and a membership of over 3,000, the club is also the third-largest in the world, behind the Hells Angels and the Bandidos.
The club is designated an organized crime syndicate by numerous law enforcement and international intelligence agencies, including the United States Department of Justice, the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, and Europol.
History
Originating as the McCook Outlaws MC, the club was founded by Electro-Motive Company employees at Matilda's bar on Route 66 in the southwestern Chicago suburb of McCook, Illinois in 1935. John Davis was reportedly the founder of the club. Although inactive during World War II, the Outlaws reformed afterwards and attended the first major post-war motorcycle rally, held at Soldier Field in Chicago in May 1946. By 1950, the club had begun recruiting members from around the Chicago area and was renamed the Chicago Outlaws MC after relocating its headquarters to the South Side of the city. In 1964, the Outlaws merged with the Cult biker club from Voorheesville, New York, the Gypsy Outlaws of Milwaukee, and the Gypsy Raiders in Louisville, Kentucky, becoming the largest "one percenter" club east of the Mississippi River and the second-largest in the United States after the California-based Hells Angels. On January 1, 1965, the various aligned clubs incorporated as the American Outlaws Association. The Outlaws further expanded into Florida in July 1967 by "patching over" the Iron Cross club in West Palm Beach.
The club featured in a work of photojournalism called The Bikeriders published in 1967 by Danny Lyon, a collection of photographs and interviews documenting the lifestyle of members of the club in the 1960s. Lyon spent four years riding with the Outlaws' Chicago chapter beginning in 1963 and became a full-fledged member of the club in "an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bike rider". The Bikeriders preceded Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson, who warned Lyon that he should "get to hell out of that club unless it's absolutely necessary for photo action."
During the early 1970s, a power struggle for control of the Outlaws developed between a faction of "beer drinkers" and a rival group of club members who preferred to smoke marijuana. John Davis, the reputed founder of the Outlaws, was killed by a "pot smoker" and Vietnam veteran during a shootout near Lake Shore Drive on the North Side of Chicago as a result the feud.
The Outlaws' long-standing rivalry with the Hells Angels began when three Hells Angel bikers were executed by Outlaw members in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on April 27, 1974. The triple murder was carried out in retaliation for the earlier beating of an Outlaw by a Hells Angel, which took place in New York City on December 31, 1973. The Hells Angels declared war on the Outlaws during a club summit held in Cleveland later in 1974. The conflict resulted in hundreds of fatalities in each club in the following decades.
In 1977, the Outlaws became an international club when several chapters of the Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club in Canada "patched over". The club further expanded internationally, into France in 1993, Australia in 1994, and Norway in 1995. Additional chapters were subsequently established throughout Europe. In November 2006, the Outlaws became the first major outlaw motorcycle club to open a chapter in the Far East when a full charter was awarded to a club in Okinawa City.