The Sons of Anarchy is an outlaw motorcycle club with many charters in the
United States. The Charming local is the original founding chapter of the
Sons of Anarchy.
The Charming charter is based out of a clubhouse adjacent to the Teller-
Morrow auto mechanic shop. Led by Clay Morrow, the club protects and
controls Charming through close community relationships, bribery and violent
intimidation. The full name of the motorcycle club is Sons of Anarchy Motor-
cycle Club, Redwood Original Charter; on occasion, the show will abbreviate
it as SOA, though more frequently the club is referred to as SAMCRO (an
acronym of Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original) or Sam Crow.
This nickname is also reflected in the original title of the show, Forever
Sam Crow.
The club's leathers also refer to "Men of Mayhem," Jax has worn a hat that
says "Reaper Crew," and their logo is a grim reaper wielding an M-16 with
a bloody scythe blade and holding a crystal ball with the anarchy "A".
Another symbol of the club is the crow. (At least two female characters
affiliated with the club have crow tattoos.) As for the motorcycles, the
Sons mostly ride customized Harley-Davidson Dynas.
Club members have "day jobs" in local industries, most of them working
at Clay's auto repair shop, but they primarily make money by illegally
importing weapons and selling them to drug gangs in the East Bay, along
with protection runs for local businesses by protecting valuable truck
shipments from hijacking.
SAMCRO keeps meth traffickers out of Charming, which puts them at odds
with the meth-distributing white supremacist "Nords" gang, the Nordics,
headed by Ernest Darby. Unlike their rivals, the Sons are relatively
diverse and inclusionist, openly rejecting the Nords' white supremacy.
The SOA also have to deal with a rival Oakland-based MC, the "Mayans"
led by Marcus Alvarez, who control the neighboring territory of northern
Nevada. Other groups in SAMCRO's orbit include the San Francisco-based
Chinese American mafia Lin Triad, led by Henry Lin, the Italian American
Cacuzza crime family, the True IRA of Ireland, which supplies them with
illegal Russian-made guns, the One-Niners, an African American street
gang (who also appeared on The Shield, thus possibly putting the two in
the same fictional universe) to whom SAMCRO sell weapons, and various
affiliates in the state prison system, where many members of the club
have been incarcerated at one time or another.
The club operates out of a clubhouse attached to the Teller-Morrow auto
shop. The clubhouse includes a living area (where Jax, at one point,
camped out after leaving his house to ex-wife Wendy following their
divorce), a bar, a pool table and an elaborate conference table made of
redwood that has a reaper logo carved into the top. The club also owns
a secluded cabin in the woods and formerly had a warehouse outside of
town where they assembled the illegal weapons. They start the series
looking for a new warehouse space, and end the first season with most
of their finances tied up in building a new one.
John Teller and Piermont "Piney" Winston co-founded SAMCRO in 1967
following their return from service as paratroopers during the Vietnam
War. Six of the "Redwood Original 9" members were vets; Clay Morrow was
the youngest of the original members. Following John's death in 1993,
his widow Gemma married Clay.
John and Gemma's surviving son Jax (another son, Tommy, died in childhood
of the "family flaw", a congenital heart defect) is second in the club's
line of succession after co-founder and sitting president Clay. Jax is
recently divorced from Wendy, the mother of his son Abel, who is born 10
weeks premature as a result of his mother's crank addiction. Jax is also
connected to Tara, a doctor at St. Thomas Hospital. The two were high
school sweethearts.
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