African-American organized crime

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migrations of African Americans from the Southern United States to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling and speakeasies were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses in African-American neighborhoods were operated by African-Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.

History

Origin and the role of segregation

was a pioneering figure credited as the founder of Chicago. Born around 1745 in Saint-Domingue, DuSable was of African and French descent. In the late 1770s, DuSable established a successful trading post near the mouth of the Chicago River, on what is now the site of downtown Chicago. His homestead became a key hub for trade between Native American tribes, French traders, and British and American settlers.
Freedman alongside fugitive slaves formed the first African-American community in Chicago in the 1840s. With the start of World War I, larger numbers of African Americans moved into Chicago. The war opened up numerous jobs, causing 50,000 African Americans to move into Chicago from 1916 to 1920, with 90% of the population being on Chicago's South Side. The South Side of Chicago grew to house a population of around 300,000 African Americans. Between 1919-1922, known as Red Summer, there was a large swell of migration north to escape Klan violence in the south It was very easy for Blacks to move into Chicago's South Side, but discrimination and segregation made it difficult for them to move to other parts of the city.
There is not much published information on Black American organized crime groups, especially between the years of 1890 and 1960. Analysis of Blacks in Chicago support evidence that the lack of information is connected to the segregation of the time. Chicago's South Side had its own way of life completely separate to that of "white" Chicago, therefore organized crime happening on the South Side was most likely not heavily reported on.
Early Black American crime had a major focus on gambling in saloons and then jazz clubs and speakeasies. Policy gambling, similar to Numbers Game, became increasingly popular in Chicago's South Side.

Prohibition and the Great Depression

New York

During the 1920s and 1930s, African American organized crime was centered in New York's Harlem, the largest black city in the world, where the numbers racket was largely controlled by Casper Holstein and the "Madam Queen of Policy", Stephanie St. Clair. St. Clair later testified at the Seabury Investigation that, during 1923 to 1928, the NYPD continued to arrest her number runners despite her making payoffs. At that time, Harlem numbers rackets were largely operated by independent policy bankers such as St. Clair; the Harlem rackets later began to receive more protection from police interference following their eventual takeover by mobster Dutch Schultz and the largely Italian and Jewish "National Crime Syndicate" in the late 1930s.

Chicago

Prohibition in the 1920s increased criminal activity in Chicago's South Side. There was a deep connection between politics and organized crime. Black nightclubs were run by Black Republican Party organizers and Daniel McKee Jackson, said to be the most powerful vice-king in Black Chicago, was a candidate for state representative.
In 1921, Chicago's South Side was struggling with widespread gambling and other forms of criminal activity. Chicago Blacks were able to have such success in the gambling business due to their connection with Republican mayor of Chicago, William Hale Thompson, who treated Blacks more equitably than his predecessors and recognized that Black gamblers greatly supported their local government. But in 1931, Thompson lost re-election to Anton Cermak. The Black gamblers eventually left the Republican party to join Cermak's Democratic fold, where they had to pay him bribes to keep operating. When Cermak died, Edward Kelly became mayor and allowed gambling along with other criminal activity to return to the South Side.

Post-World War II

Prison sometimes played a role in creating African-American organized crime groups in the post-WWII era. Connections made in prison strengthened connections outside of prison among ex-convicts.

New York

In the years following the end of the World War II, Black American organized crime grew along with the rise of Black American social consciousness and later political, social and economic upward mobility. The Black American gangster Bumpy Johnson established close ties with the New York Italian-American Mafia and Jewish Mob in the post-war years, establishing some degree of independence for Black American organized crime groups in Harlem from the dominant New York organized crime groups. Many of the major drug traffickers in the United States emerged during the early-to-mid-1960s, such as Leroy "Nicky" Barnes, Guy Fisher, and Frank Lucas, taking advantage of the increasing political strength during the civil rights movement.
Previously dependent partially on the political and police protection of New York's Five Families, Black American gangsters were able to negotiate with outside criminal organizations and establish a stronger independent hold over certain territories, and the Mafia's ability to control or impose a "street tax" on criminal operations in Black American neighborhoods began to wane. Black American and Italian-American organized crime groups in the Northeast and Midwest instead began to cooperate to a greater extent than in previous decades, increasingly sharing profits and coordinating rackets.
By the early 1970s, the large narcotics empires created by Nicky Barnes, Frank Matthews, and Frank Lucas began expanding beyond Harlem as Lucas sought to ultimately control a large-scale drug trafficking operation by gaining control of a network from Indochina directly to the streets of ghettos across the country. Other criminal groups started smuggling marijuana and cocaine in cities including New York City, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. as well as in New Jersey, California, Florida and Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

California

In the 1940s, thousands of Black Americans migrated from the South into Los Angeles for World War II jobs. Overcrowding became a huge issue, especially since legalized restrictive covenants kept Blacks from moving into other areas of LA. Violent clashes arose between the Black and white populations. Black gangs were created as protection against white violence. They first arose on the Eastside of LA before extending south and west.
Eventually, white residents began moving out of South Los Angeles into the suburbs. In the early 1960s, Black gang violence continued to grow as whites left the area. The Black gangs, which started as protection groups, began fighting each other. But in 1965 after the Watts Rebellion, much of the violence between the gangs dissipated. Members instead focused on fighting police brutality and other social injustices. Black gang activity declined in the years following with a turn towards political advocacy.
But by the late 1960s, new street gangs emerged as Black consciousness fell away with political leadership. Immature teens without leadership soon became involved in criminal activity and by 1972 one of the first gang murders of the time took place. Many factors, including severe radicalization, caused these violent street gangs to surface, one such gang being the well-known Crips.
By the 1990s, over 270 gangs emerged and an epidemic of homicides emerged.
On the West Coast in Oakland, California, Felix Mitchell and his 69 Mob ran a large scale drugs trafficking operation, generating income of nearly a million dollars in monthly business.

Other Areas

According to a United States Senate sub-committee on organized crime during the 1980s, one of the most sophisticated, corporate-like, structured, organized crime groups outside of the Italian mafia was the Young Boys Inc.. Founded by a small group of teen-aged friends on Detroit's west side in the mid-1970s, in less than two years, YBI took over the majority of Southeast Michigan's heroin trade with absolutely no interference from any other crime groups.
At its peak, YBI sales were an estimated $300,000 a day. The murder of one of the founders, Dwayne Davis, and a series of federal indictments on 2 of the remaining bosses and 40 of the top lieutenants crippled YBI in 1982. There were a few lieutenants who survived, one in particular carried on the organization in Detroit and Boston through the late 1980s until crack cocaine became the drug of choice over heroin.

African-American gangs

Black Mafia

The Black Mafia was an African-American crime group located in Philadelphia. Founded in 1968, they were known for narcotics, the numbers racket, misusing government funds, extortion, murder, and more.
The group didn't target everyday citizens, but targeted other criminals. They were known for their violent crimes and used murder as a means to keep that reputation. They used the numbers racket to control their territories and gambling. They also created fake community groups, such as the Council for Youth and Urban Development as fronts to receive government funding.
The Black Mafia also had members that were linked to the Nation of Islam. They also took over the heroin trade and extorted other groups. Later, a younger group paying homage to the Black Mafia named themselves the Junior Black Mafia and were also heavily involved in drug trafficking, specifically crack-cocaine, during the mid-1980s to early 1990s.
The Black Mafia is no longer active and was succeeded by the Junior Black Mafia.