Benjamin Melendez (born 1952?) is best known for brokering the gang truce in the Bronx and Harlem (New York City) in 1971. At that time, he was President of the Ghetto Brothers, a mainly ethnically Puerto Rican South Bronx gang, and lead guitarist of a musical group also known as the Ghetto Brothers.Melendez was heavily involved in the rise of Puerto Rican nationalist consciousness among Nuyorican youth, having forged connections with the Puerto Rican Socialist Party.