Larry Hoover

Larry Hoover (born November 30, 1950) is an American former mobster and gang kingpin.

He is the founder of the Chicago street gang, the Gangster Disciples.

Hoover is currently serving six life sentences at the ADX Florence prison facility in Colorado.

Hoover was born on November 30, 1950, in Jackson, Mississippi.

He moved to Chicago, Illinois, at the age of four.

At the age of 13, Hoover dropped out of junior high and joined a gang called the Supreme Gangsters, when he was involved in petty theft and muggings.

In 1969, Hoover and David Barksdale called a truce and decided to combine both of their respective rival gangs (Supreme Gangsters and Black Disciples) together to become the Black Gangster Disciple Nation (BGDN).

He was previously sentenced to life imprisonment plus 200 years for a 1973 murder.

On the evening of February 26, 1973, William "Pooky" Young, a 19-year-old neighborhood drug dealer, was abducted and later shot dead in an alley near 68th Street and Union Avenue in Englewood, a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.

His killing was ordered by Hoover after his name was mentioned as one of three people accused of stealing drugs and money from the gang six days earlier.

On March 16, 1973, Hoover—along with Young's killer, Black Disciple member Andrew Howard—were both arrested.

In November 1973, Howard and Hoover were both charged with murder and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 200 years in prison.

Hoover was sent to Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, to serve out his term.

In 1974, after the leader of the Black Disciples, David Barksdale, died of kidney failure stemming from injuries incurred in a 1970 shooting, Hoover took over the reins of the Black Gangster Disciple Nation.

He deemed himself the chairman of the crew.

At the time, the Disciples had control of Chicago's South Side turf.

Under Hoover's rule, the Black Gangster Disciple Nation took over a majority of the Chicago drug trade.

While incarcerated, in 1978, Hoover, formed the Folk Nation, which added all gangs in his personal likeliness and interest to relate to the BGDN such as the Lady, Satan, Maniac Latin, Spanish Gangster Disciples, Ambrose, the Two-Two Boys, Two Sixers, Simon City Royals, North Side Insane Popes, La Raza Nation, Spanish Cobras, Imperial Gangsters, Harrison Gents, and the Latin Eagles.

The Folk Nation maintained their ground from within prison property to drug-ruffled streets.

While Hoover was incarcerated, he ran the gang's illicit drug trade both in prison and on the streets, starting from Chicago's West Side and later extending throughout the United States.

Similarly, certain parts of the affiliated Folk Nation alliance began to expand to parts of the United States including the Midwest of which Chicago is in.

As of 2022, the Gangster Disciples has confirmed expansions to Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Memphis and Hoover's birthplace of Jackson.

The Folk Nation, including that of the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, also personified a rivalry with the People Nation, which included other gangs such as the Almighty Black P. Stone Nation (run by Jeff Fort, who today shares the same prison facility as Hoover and is also a Mississippi-born native), Almighty Vice Lord Nation, Latin Kings, Mickey Cobras, South Side Almighty Insane Popes (the South Side faction were rivals with the Simon City Royals, Satan Disciples and Two Sixers, causing them to splinter themselves from the North Side faction), Almighty Saints and the Four Corner Hustlers.

The Gangster Disciples also engaged in a city rivalry with South Memphis crew, the Love Murdering Gangsters (formerly LMG Mafia).

In 1989, the Black Gangster Disciples began having leadership problems as they noticed Hoover's leadership of the Folk Nation alliance deteriorated once he shifted his sole focus toward the now-splintered Gangster Disciples.

The decline of the BGDN leadership infuriated a majority of its members and resulted in the two gangs separating into the aforementioned Gangster Disciples and the reincarnated Black Disciples.

One instance of their split and later animosity was a drug dealing dispute in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago's South Side, which escalated into a shooting that killed several people.

By early 1993, Hoover claimed to have renounced his violent criminal past and became an urban political celebrity in Chicago.

Hoover proclaimed that the GD initials had changed to mean "Growth & Development."

As of July 2022, Hoover confirms that he no longer affiliates with the Gangster Disciples and wants "no part" of the gang "whatsoever".

He also claims that he was "no longer the Larry Hoover people sometimes talk about, or he who is written about in the papers, or the crime figure described by the government."

Many believed it was a ruse for his plan to have his sentence reduced or either way appealed.

While in prison for murder, on August 22, 1995, after a 17-year undercover joint investigation by the Illinois Department of Corrections, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Hoover was indicted for conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, drug-related offenses, and continuing to engage in a criminal enterprise.

A lengthy federal investigation using wiretaps led to Hoover getting arrested.

Prosecutors alleged that his gang had 30,000 "soldiers" in 35 states and made $100 million a year.

However, following a 17-year investigation, he was convicted of conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, and running a continuing criminal enterprise from state prison, Hoover received another life term in 1997.

He has made multiple attempts to have his sentence shortened.

In 1968, Hoover was romantically involved with Winndye Jenkins, with whom he shares one of his three children, son Larry Hoover Jr. They were denied marriage by the Illinois Department of Corrections until January 9, 2020, when they were deemed legally married by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Hoover was formerly associated with Gangster Disciple lieutenant, A'Marion Taylor.

He also involved himself in fighting cold cases about murders that are only now coming to light, also tied to the organization.