African American organized crime

African American organized crime refers to Black criminal organizations in the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that operated similar to the Italian-American Mafia. Scholars disagree on how much power and influence members had, particularly in the early decades, because they lacked connections in law enforcement and politics.

Initially, these groups were primarily involved in gambling, most often offering games of chance using cards and dice, but moved into numbers games and policy banks. Later groups dealt in drugs, which made affiliations with these groups more dangerous. As rival groups fought over territory, law enforcement struggled to reduce the bloodshed in cities.

While organized crime has victims, it can benefit communities in some ways. It often provides employment for people who are denied work, education, and job training. It fuels the local economy and can operate independently from the mainstream, White-controlled economy. Some illegal lottery operations, known as numbers rackets or policy banks, operate as banks in Black communities. These policy banks offer loans to people who are rejected by traditional banks and allow individuals to circumvent redlining practices. For these reasons, communities sometimes overlook the criminal aspect of organized crime.

Background

After emancipation and the end of the American Civil War, former enslaved people recognized that the White power structure of the South would prevent them from improving their situations. Many moved west to farm because of the government’s promise of land. Others moved to cities in the North, trading rural life for an urban setting.

A mass exodus known as the Great Migration began quietly in Selma, Alabama, in late 1916 when a few Black families moved to the North. At that time, 90 percent of all African Americans lived in the South. By the 1970s, when the Great Migration ended, 47 percent of all African Americans were living in the North and West. The Great Migration was accelerated by changing political conditions and economic growth during World War I (1914–1918), which led to both a ramped-up war economy and fewer immigrants from Europe landing in the United States. Industry in the North demanded labor, and some companies began sending recruiters to the South to encourage Black workers to move for new jobs. Authorities in the South responded by licensing recruiters and charging them thousands of dollars to work. As the formerly full pool of cheap Black labor began to dry up, authorities began arresting African Americans at railway stations, charging them with vagrancy.

In the North, African Americans found greater degrees of freedom and opportunity, but not equality. They were prevented from living in certain communities, from working in some jobs, and were paid less than White Americans doing the same jobs.

In major cities, Black communities developed unique cultural identities. The Harlem Renaissance, for example, was an intellectual and artistic period that spanned the 1920s when the arts exploded in the Black community of Harlem in Manhattan, New York. Writers, musicians, artists, dancers, actors, and others developed their talents in this social incubator. Patrons flocked to Harlem’s nightclubs and theaters. With all this social traffic, individuals in power and others who wanted to gain influence were aware that there was money to be made in Harlem.

Illegal lotteries called numbers rackets were popular in these types of casual economies. They began in the late nineteenth century and operated for decades in most cities, including Chicago, Illinois, and New York. An individual could bet as little as a penny on a three-digit number that would be published, such as the last three digits of the New York Stock Exchange total. Other illegal activities, such as card games, also flourished. During Prohibition (1920–1933), when alcohol sales were forbidden, unsanctioned alcohol production supplied speakeasies and underground nightclubs. These and similar activities were commonly connected to organized crime.

Overview

African American organized crime developed in major cities in response to social conditions. Most individuals involved saw aspects of society—such as careers, housing, and education—out of their reach. African Americans were frequently exploited by White criminals, the police, politicians, and commercial enterprises. African Americans who returned from fighting in World War I expected to be treated equally, or at least better than they were treated previously, but found that this was not the case. Crime was a means of meeting basic needs and eventually of getting ahead in an unfair situation. Such social conditions favored the development of crime organizations.

Criminal activity can be discriminatory. Organized crime relies on people in power, especially politicians, to shield organizations from law enforcement. African Americans had no political power during the nineteenth century, so they were not in a position to develop organized crime operations. However, by moving out of the South, they gained some political freedom and a measure of power as a voting bloc that opened new opportunities.

Early African American organized crime groups focused on numbers games because they had little competition and such games were traditionally located in their own communities. Many African Americans set up successful numbers rackets in New York alone. Stephanie St. Clair, for example, got her start running extortion and theft operations as the leader of a gang called the Forty Thieves. She then invested some money in setting up a numbers racket, called a policy bank, and operated a profitable organization into the early 1930s. With the end of Prohibition and bootlegging, however, Jewish and Italian mobsters began inching into St. Clair’s territory in search of new revenue. St. Clair did not have connections with police and politicians to protect herself or her operation. By the mid-1930s, she handed her organization over to the Jewish and Italian Mafias.

This lack of connections was a persistent problem for African American criminals. Policy bankers lacked connections to protect them. They were shut out of traditional mobster businesses such as loansharking and labor racketeering. Establishing a drug operation presented fewer obstacles. However, African American drug sales groups could not operate independently for some time. They had to purchase heroin through Mafia connections. This changed when they developed their own networks. The Vietnam War (1954–1975) was a significant event for organized crime. Many Black soldiers sent to Vietnam encountered the heroin markets of Indochina, where opium was an important crop. Some individuals developed their own contacts in Asia this way. This allowed African American organized crime groups to abandon their connections with the Mafia and establish their own heroin suppliers.

Another significant social change around this time was the increasing amount of cocaine flowing north from Latin America, and the emergence of crack cocaine in the 1980s and subsequent crack epidemic. Drug addiction in communities in the latter half of the twentieth century altered the nature of crime, making it more predatory. The competition and violent conflict between street gangs selling drugs led to a rise in crime and made urban life even more dangerous.

The Black Mafia Family carved out their empire from Detroit's streets. Brothers Terry and Demetrius Flenory ran an international cocaine network until 2008 when federal agents finally caught up with them. The brothers pled guilty to receive identical 30 year sentences for multiple crimes, including trafficking and money laundering.

In Chicago, the Gangster Disciples built an army of their own. Formed in 1974, the Gangster Disciples has evolved into a highly organized criminal enterprise with nearly 30,000 members in Chicago and a presence in at least 35 other states. Generating over $100 million annually from narcotics sales and street taxes, the gang is a major player in Chicago's underground economy.

These were not isolated cases. Through the 2020s, groups like the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords tightened their grip on American cities. The COVID-19 pandemic hit hard in neighborhoods that were already struggling before the pandemic started. When businesses closed and jobs disappeared, gangs offered what looked like a way out. They saw opportunity in chaos, exploiting weak spots in banking systems and digital payments as everyone scrambled to adjust to life under lockdown. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, business and industries at risk for staying open during the pandemic, such as transportation, hospitality, arts, and beauty, would find themselves more likely to take loans from organized crime groups to stay afloat during the pandemic. Then, when pandemic conditions improved and business reopened, the crime groups would be in greater positions of power through these businesses, leaving open opportunities for illegal activities such as money laundering and trafficking activities. This would further enable these organized crime groups to further expand their control and power within their communities and establish power in their regions.

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