David Barksdale Essay

David Barksdale was born in 1947 and was one of the first black men to create street gangs that had a modicum of power. Back in those days it was mostly Italians and Irish people that had street gangs, but in Donise David Barksdale‘s short life he become the leader of the Devil’s Disciples, the Maniac Latin Disciples, the Black Disciples, Satan’s Disciples and the Black Gangster Disciples. He died when he was thirty, but is still remembered as one of the first black US crime lords. He was born with the name Donise David Barksdale in Sallis, Mississippi. His parents were Charlie and Virginia, and they had 13 children, so as you can imagine, David was brought up in a very poor family.

When David was 10 years old, he moved to Chicago with his family. It was 1957, and within three years he became a gang leader. He was only 13 years old, but he was the leader of a small gang. There were plenty of small gangs with black people in them, but they were small and seemingly harmless. They were still committing crime and killing, but the effect they had on the community was negligible.

David changed all that by joining smaller groups into a larger group. By 1966, David had already absorbed several black gangs into his own to make it a larger one. At that point, he had changed his gang into the Black Disciple Nation, which was the biggest and most powerful black gang of all time. However, some of the smaller gangs took exception to the power that David was accumulating. A man called Eugene Hariston was part of the gang called the Black Stone Rangers.

He ordered a hit on David and whilst David was leaving a bar he was shot seven times. David actually survived the attack and he had Eugene killed in prison after Eugene was sentenced for attempted murder. In 1969, the Gangster Disciples and the Black Disciple Nation merged to form the Black Gangster Disciple Nation. It happened because David and Larry Hoover the leader of the Gangster Disciples figured there had been enough black-on-black violence. The newly merged group became the biggest black gang in history.

Nowadays there are bigger ones, but at the time, it was the biggest black gang in US history. David Barksdale died in 1974 due to an ongoing illness. Despite the fact that he had already been shot seven times, the bullet that gave him the most trouble was fired by one of his cohorts called “Suitcase Charlie.” He shot David by accident and since then David had kidney trouble. In 1974, it was kidney failure that killed David and gave him a very painful and uncomfortable death.

ConclusionDavid Barksdale legacy is one of blood, law breaking and violence. Despite the fact he was the first black person to create a very large street gang, it is nothing to be proud of. There is no reason why this man should be revered in any way. The fact he is the first black man to create a record-breaking gang is nothing to be proud of. Nobody would be proud if his title was for being the first black man to kill 100 people with golf club. Liberals say that it was his poor background that forced him into a life of crime, but his other 12 siblings didn’t resort to becoming killers and lawbreakers.

In addition, when he had his children he was very rich, and yet they too became hardened criminals despite the fact they had a lot of money. The fact is that David made a lot of bad choices, and even though he broke a record for largest black gang size, it is a shameful slice of American history.