How To Become A Vice Lord

The Simply White Vice Lord

by Bobby Gore

I met Dave in the summertime of 1967 when we were putting on a fundraiser for poor counties in Mississippi at the Senate Theater. We were busy trying to go on security when I looked up and hither this guy had come over on Kedzie and Madison at night during the Black Power era. And he came by himself — nobody brought him. With all the bad press we were getting, I thought he was a gutsy guy for being there.

Pep: Get-go Leader of the
Conservative Vice Lords

A few days later, Pep brought him through the pool room. He was working for TransCentury in Washington D.C., doing a written report for the government, and he needed 4 or five guys to work with him. We were to practise a door-to-door sheet with printed questionnaires so we went through training and how we should nowadays ourselves.

This questionnaire asked how youth felt about dissimilar agencies. Were they doing a practiced job? Did they take meaningful programs? Then there were questions about playgrounds? Did they accept equipment? Baseballs? Basketballs? That's when nosotros plant out in that location had been millions of dollars poured into Lawndale to accomplish young people on the street, which at that time was the so-chosen gangs.

Nosotros decided to check out a few centers, wanting to know how much had come to the street�not necessarily money just what programs, mayhap basketball teams, baseball teams, only to find out these people were afraid of us. Even though we didn't go to college, when things are not correct, you lot can tell. And this is what activated Dave besides — he had some thought of what was supposed to be going on.

A lot happened during that summer. Dave was hanging effectually and saw that nosotros were serious in wanting to rid the community of offense and violence and so when he had to go back to TransCentury and make out his reports, he promised to render to Sixteenth Street to help us.

A couple months passed and the next thing nosotros know, Dave popped up again. But the sight of this guy coming back told us he was sincere.

Dave started going out with u.s., and you tin imagine what the reaction was when we went into an all black dance hall — not disco, only dance hall and Dave'due south the only white guy in at that place. The place was total of blacks, but Dave had as much fun as nosotros did.

I began to put a lot of trust in this guy. He was razor sharp and defended to making our ideas become a reality. Merely there was ever a danger for Dave being a white guy, running around Sixteenth Street, the W Side. He was living on the street, just similar we were, and there were a lot of Lords that wanted to injure him. In fact, there was a policeman we used to call Gloves who wanted Dave off the streets.* This guy was known for breaking heads, just beating people: �go off the goddamn corner; I'm not gonna enquire ya merely 1 time, and if y'all didn't movement, this guy had either knocked you down or kicked you in the rear.

We weren't goin' for a lot of that as a matter of fact, part of our motility was to contact law commanders in Marquette and Fillmore to let so know we were going to amend the community�cut out the gangbanging. But people similar Gloves and some of the Lords who were snatching pocketbooks had a hard time accepting Dave. Some wondered what is this guy doing? Is he an FBI plant? Is he out to crush us? And then we put out a communication that if anything happened to Dave, it had to happen to all of us.

Dave started coming up with some possible answers to what we were trying to organize, and afterwards hearing what Dave was saying to some of the people he said he would contact, I started assertive that he was really going to give us some help. As time went on, Dave became more involved with the street life and our prograsm — to the signal that he used to get darn right angry when nosotros wouldn't get off our butts and do what we were supposed to exist carrying out. And that was another learning thing from Dave. When you got something to exercise, you were supposed to go alee and practice it.

I can remember the time when Dr. King was assassinated. That was some other night of total chaos. Annexation, burning, the whole fleck. And Dave was out in the center with the states, passing out handbills, saying this ain't the manner to do it: we're destroyin' our own holding nosotros're hurting the neighborhood, and that's not what Dr. King would have wanted.

Dave was out in that location in the streets with us, and that was a very unsafe situation for him. But the true cat was a trooper — he was a real alive Lord then. Everybody knew him by that time, and they knew that this cat was always up front end. Some carried little suspicions, but they were start to relax with Dave. And that wasn't because of what nosotros said earlier. That was because Dave was function of what was going on.

Another time, we had occasion to become to East St. Louis. We were working on a national program chosen Y.O.U. Basically, it was black. There were some whites at that place that were sincere similar Dave, but one of the guys from East St. Louis stood up and said: "Nosotros don't want any whites in this meeting — they gotta leave."

Well, the Lords, beingness from Chicago, had to have a stand. Nosotros just fabricated the statement: " Look, if this guy that'south with united states of america has to go, nosotros won't fifty-fifty be a part of this ourselves." And then by us existence a leader in this whole concept of Youth Organizations United opening advice, one group learning from another when they asked that all whites leave the room, we just made a decision that if Dave had to go, nosotros'd go too. So a vote was taken, and nosotros won. Dave and all other whites were allowed to stay and as a result, You was born and became a reality.

Nosotros stood upwards for Dave because at that bespeak, he had get a role of us. Nosotros weren't lookin' at color; this guy had go a regular.

I heard time and time again what is this honky doin' over here "he own't gonna practice nothin' but go off and write his book." We heard information technology from policemen, from Vice Lords, from some white liberals jealous people. What they didn't know is that Dave put fourth dimension in and he had the right to do the volume. Hell, Dave couldn't write the book if he hadn't lived this shit. And the good part is that the volume was done nether contract, and some of the profits would be channeled back into scholarships.

I was locked up when Dave went back to Boston. I was in the wrong place at the wrong damn time and some killing went on. I ended up existence convicted for a offense I didn't commit. Our biggest fear had been something just similar what happened — that the people would come in and crush the whole thing.

David Dawley
1991 Stuart Bratesman

I served 11 years and 3 months in Stateville, and I was in communication with Dave on a fairly regular ground while I was incarcerated. Fifty-fifty through the letters that this guy would write, you lot could feel warmth and concern. The guy made some moves for me and even came down during my parole hearing.

Today, though we're living in different cities, we share the memories of having worked to turn the Vice Lords into a effective arrangement, of helping to make the streets safe, of providing hope to the difficult core that society gave up on.

Later on twenty years, we're still brothers.

* Gloves Davis was reported to have killed Mark Clark in the Black Panther killings in 1969. The Melt County District Chaser's Office was condemned, and years later, the authorities paid nearly $ii 1000000 in an out of court settlement with the families of those who were killed.

While in the Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, Bobby Gore completed high school and higher and founded a chapter of the Jaycees inside Stateville. Since his parole, he has worked for the Safer Foundation in Chicago, a nonprofit task placement and counseling service for ex-convicts. He has bee honored as Safer�s Employee of the Twelvemonth and while Director of the Cabrini-Green Outreach Middle every bit Manager of the Year.