Reverend David Washington was at one time one of the most feared men in the city of Chicago. As a chief for the Gangster Disciples (GD), Washington had a violent reputation that preceded him in the community.
“There was a fear about me — I’m not going to lie to you about that,” Washington says, sitting in the pulpit of Oakdale Covenant Church.
Today, Washington is the youth pastor at Oakdale, counseling young black men ages 12-18 about the dangers of life on the street. Since the age of five — although he’s now a husband and proud father — Washington was introduced to the Gangster Disciples through family members. Originally, he joined the Disciples because like most people in the community, he viewed groups like the these led more as an extension of the Black Power Movement than as a “gang.”
It wasn’t until the government got involved that real gangs were born, Washington says. “What happened was a lot of the leaders that were trying to do positive things with urban black youth in the inner-city — were either killed [or] put in jail. Some of them went through the COINTELPRO with the government and what it left was black men with ambition, but not wisdom and [they] didn’t [have] the kind of leadership to channel that energy in a positive way,” he says.
Today, Chicago like Los Angeles has been under a microscope when it comes to the gang culture. The issue of who’s to blame recently caught fire when 500 Chicago school children were shot during the 2008-2009 school year, leaving 36 dead. In addition, gun violence is costing the city an average of $2.5 billion a year, and it seems the easiest thing to do is point the finger at the gangs.
“Well, on the one-hand we have this self-destructive, self-degrading syndrome. It’s [a] deep-seated inferiority complex — we kill each other,” Reverend Jesse Jackson recently said to Rolling out when asked about Chicago’s youth violence. “On the other hand, jobs leaving and hope leaving — and drugs and guns coming in [is] a lethal combination.”
For the gang world in particular, Washington agrees that the changing times have created a more violent culture. “The gangs have that crassness, almost like terrorism now because it’s not organized – that’s what makes it dangerous – there are no rules to hold you,” Washington says. –gavin philip godfrey
