The gang's genesis dates back to 1960, with a South Side gang called the Devil's Disciples that had grown large enough to warrant the assignment of an outreach worker by the Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago Youth Services (source: Chicago Historical Society). The Devil's Disciples were mostly African American males, ages 15 to 18, who frequented the intersection of 53rd St. and Kimbark Ave., and operated from 53rd and Woodlawn to 49th St. and Dorchester Ave. At early 1960s this gang known when the Devils Disciples became the "Black Disciples" (see Explosion of Chicago's Black Street Gangs: 1900 to Present, 1990, by Useni Perkins). The three main actors of the Devils Disciples were David Barksdale, Shorty Freeman and Don Derky. Most accounts trace the founding of the Black Disciples to the year 1966 as a Southside gang. The founding leader of the Black Disciples was David Barksdale, referred to in gang materials as "King David". As a boy, Barksdale trained as a boxer at the Better Boys Foundation, later unsuccessfully attempting to turn pro in New York before returning to Chicago. Even in the 1960s, the Black Disciples were enemies or rivals of Black P. Stone. Rangers led by Jeff Fort. The center of their influence in the 1960s appeared to be in Chicago's Englewood community, where "to raise money to finance their illegal enterprises, Disciple leaders held fund-raising parties at the Maryland Theater, located at 63rd and Maryland." (See Illinois Police and Sheriffs News, “Paying the Price of Our Neglect: Street Gangs are the New Organized Crime,” Spring, 1994.) Barksdale, seriously injured by gunfire from a rival gang member in 1969, died in 1974 from kidney failure related to those injuries. Barksdale's arrests consisted primarily of disorderly conduct, weapons, and drug (i.e., marijuana) possession, with no actual convictions for drug dealing, according to a relative interviewed in July 1995. Regardless of the precedent of Barksdale's arrests, early in the '70 it was clear that his gang was involved in drug trafficking. And when he died, narcotics territory and the leadership of the Black Disciples were up for grabs. Two men attempted to fill the power vacuum: Jerome "Shorty" Freeman became the leader of the existing Black Disciples; and Larry "King" Hoover created his own thing---the Black Gangster Disciples. Freeman sought to protect Barksdale territory for the benefit of his gang, the Black Disciples or BD's (which continues today as a separate organization with its own unique by-laws and constitution.