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But the other image that emerged from the tapes--and the one Hoover's lawyers stressed--is of a dedicated community leader struggling to transform the Gangster Disciples from a criminal organization into a force for grass-roots empowerment called "Growth and Development." Throughout Chicago's poorest districts, the gang organized neighborhood cleanups, midnight basketball games and food drives in which hundreds of bags of Cornish hens, macaroni-and-cheese dinners and boxes of Stove Top stuffing were given away to the poor. Through such "righteous endeavors," said Hoover on the tapes, the G.D.s could become a force for prosperity and change
By the early 1990s, the G.D.s' political-action committee, 21st Century VOTE, was financing Chicago voter-registration drives, conducting gang "peace summits" and holding rallies in support of health-care reform. This eventually won them support from inner-city schools, churches and community leaders, including former Chicago Mayor Eugene Sawyer. It also gave them political power. Wallace ("Gator") Bradley, a spokesman for 21st Century VOTE who describes himself as a former G.D.s "war counselor," ran for alderman twice (he lost both times, but forced a runoff on his second attempt) and, in January 1994, was admitted to the White House with Jesse Jackson to speak to Bill Clinton about combatting crime.
But impressive as all this evidence may have been, it was ultimately undermined by Hoover's own words. The tapes revealed that even as he spoke of the need to "enlighten these young brothers" and "stop selling drugs" in 1993, Hoover was laying down a citywide tax, ordering every drug dealer to give one day of profits each week to Hoover. The boast that this would net $200,000 to $300,000 a week was one of the most damaging pieces of evidence the jury heard, thereby proving what Hoover had been telling his disciples all along: crowing like a rooster can turn you into a dead duck.