Article: Winston Moore, county jail warden 1st African American to run a U.S. prison took over in 1968

Warden Winston E. Moore found a quick solution to gang graffiti scrawled on the walls of Cook County Jail.

He handed a paintbrush to Black P Stone Nation gang leader Jeff Fort and said, "Clean it up."

Word got around, and the graffiti stopped.

Mr. Moore, who ran Cook County Jail for a tumultuous nine years in the 1960s and '70s and was the first African-American prison warden in the United States, died Sept. 18 of heart failure at his home in Banning, Calif. He was 73.

Trained as a psychologist, Mr. Moore was named warden of Cook County Jail in 1968 by Sheriff Joseph Woods and reformed the notorious "barn boss system," in which authorities had allowed certain inmates to assume control of ...

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