Biography
Larry Hoover is a former gang member and street level black liberation organizer currently serving concurrent sentences resulting from a prison uprising in 1978. In 1974, after the death of David Barksdale, Hoover was appointed the new leader of the BGDN. Two years later, Jerome Freeman left the BGDN, making the Black Disciples and the Black Gangster Disciples separate gang organizations. On July 22, 1978, an inmate riot at the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois resulted in the death of three corrections officers. This uprising was rumored to have been ordered by Hoover. 21 inmates were indicted; ten were acquitted after an 11-week trial. Charges against Hoover and seven others were eventually dropped. Hoover and the leaders of other gang organizations in Chicago came together to form the Folk Nation alliance, a pact meant to settle disputes and instill a more peaceful environment behind prison walls and on the streets. Hoover then changed the organization to GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT to move the organization onto a positive path.
