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Crime, Law & Social Change 38: 33-65, 2002. (C) 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 33
The Black Mafia: African-American organized crime in Chicago 1890-1960
ROBERT M. LOMBARDO Department of Sociology, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Abstract. The historical role of African-Americans in organized crime in the United States has been greatly ignored by the academic community. The research that does exist argues that black Americans played a minor role in the ethnic gambling and vice industries that existed in many American cities at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. This view is supported by the alien conspiracy theory, which argues that the participation of African-Americans and other minorities in syndicated vice and crime followed the decline of traditional Italian American organized crime groups. This research argues that sophisticated African-American organized crime groups in Chicago existed independently of Italian American organized crime and that African-Americans eventually played an important role in the activities of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional Italian American organized group in Chicago.
Introduction The history of African-American involvement in organized crime in America is confusing to say the least. Though a number of authors have recognized black participation in the policy (lottery) gambling racket, they also argue that African-Americans lacked the political associations and organizational skills necessary to participate in criminal activity on the same level as the once prominent Italian American crime syndicates.1 For example, Drake and Clayton report that Negroes never got more than "petty cuts" from gambling and vice protection.2 In their recent book, African-American Organized Crime Shatzberg and Kelly add that:
Throughout the early period of white gang development, African-Americans were not visible in the structure of any significant organized criminal process. Indeed, African-American criminals who entered the twentieth century had no documented history of a leadership role or any significant active affiliation with any organized crime group.3
In a related article, Kelly goes on to state that:
There was in effect no "Mafia" or syndicate structure among these minority groups. They did not evolve around a common code of behavior or
34 R.M. LOMBARDO
rules governing relationships between and among various groups; the protection they paid to operate in illicit goods and services was not of a magnitude that would have significant political impact;...