once upon a time in "bronzeville"...
"KINGS :the true story of chicago's policy kings and numbers racketeers" http://www.policykings.com
...it came out originally in 1994 , i bought the book recently and although i have not yet completed it , from what i've read thus far , i have to give the brother his props ...
this is an era that was declining and ending as i was being born , but socially , politically and of cource financially , STILL effects black people today. it covers a significant portion of our story that touched every aspect of black life and needs to be preserved , told and most importantly LEARNED FROM by present and future generations...
long before the hip hop generation made "gettin paid" a popular slogan , the black policy kings and queens of "bronzevilles" all across america , not only were "gettin paid" , they were THE philanthropists of the black communities and spread the wealth around ...
unfortunately , as seems usual in america for black innovators /entrepreneurs , their creativity and success sounded their own deathknell as greedy envious outsiders took note of the huge sums of dollars being continuously recirculated throughout black communities by the policy game . the policy kings were assaulted and eventually defeated by a triumvirate of white politicians ,irish , jewish and italian gangsters and police .
then as today, white politicians used get tough on "negro crime" campaigns to promote themselves to white voters as crimefighters . negro crime , of course meant the black policy games . white politicians basically ignored white gambling operations during these campaigns and concentrated on disrupting the black policy games despite the generous bribes that the policy kings had been paying police and politicians for years .
in new york , harlem policy queen , madame stephanie st. claire eventually testified publicly before police corruption commission hearings and complained bitterly that the police and political bosses were still taking her bribe money yet arresting her employees and ruining her operation anyway .
when the repeal of prohibition ended bootlegging as their primary source of income , envious italian , jewish and irish mobsters all declared war on the black policy kings , but when the kings organized their own "soldiers" to fight back , they had also the added burden of fighting these wars while facing arrest from the crooked police for being blackmen and carrying weapons ... despite the triple attack , the policy kings of chicago held out for around 20 years until the 1950s when the last of them , teddy roe, was assassinated by italian mobsters .
after that , the mafia ran all of the nation's black policy banks , took the lion's share of profits , and gave NOTHING back to the black community .
across the nation ,these massive sums of black money daily went gushing out of the black communities like river water until the mid 1970s when state after state in the Us formed their own daily games of chance , making legal what they had for decades , locked up blacks for doing . now these black community dollars help fill state coffers--states that in general do NOT fund public education in black school districts at the same levels as they do for the more affluent ...
http://policykings.com/
http://policykings.com/kings-hot-sentinel1.jpg
'KINGS'
The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings
and Numbers Racketeers
An Informal History by
Nathan Thompson
Published by The BronzeVille Press®
Critically Acclaimed Bestseller!
The MOST SOUGHT AFTER BOOK of the YEAR!
KINGS chronicles the rise and fall of the Policy era, the obscured period in American history between Reconstruction and the modern Civil Rights era. It is the story of how Policy became the 'State Lottery'. Policy was the single biggest Black owned and operated business enterprise in the world, generating upwards of two hundred million dollars annually during the Depression, and controlled by a national brotherhood of African American men called Policy Kings. These men bankrolled the Negro Baseball League, banks, insurance companies, the career of boxing great Joe Louis, and untold medical and professional practices. They were also responsible for converting the Black vote from Republican to Democrat.
Critically Acclaimed!
"Required reading"
- Chicago Sun-Times
"...engulfs, engenders, enthralls!"
- Chicago Defender
"...A Uniquely Historical Book" - N'DIGO
*a review from chicago daily tribune by dawn turner trice (or scroll down and read excerpts from the book)
Gambling can be risky policy, no matter the name
Dawn Turner Trice
May 10, 2004
Before the lottery, before riverboat gambling and before casinos as we know them, there was a game called policy that ruled Chicago's South Side in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
What was policy? I'll put it this way: Thirty years ago when commercials began appearing on television publicizing the brand new Illinois Lottery game, some older African-Americans sitting around watching their screens sucked their teeth and said, "Child, that ain't nothing new, that's policy."
According to Chicago native Nathan Thompson, author of "Kings: The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers," policy was conceived around the late 1880s and was owned and operated for decades by black men called policy kings.
Policy players, lured by the possibility of hitting it big on a small bet, would pick a number combination, say 3-1-2, called a gig. A nickel wager could win you $5.
In the early days, winning numbers were pulled from the derby of Sam Young, policy's creator, as he stood on the corner of State and Madison Streets. Soon, Young moved his hustle south along State Street to a saloon.
By 1915, players could learn the winning numbers by visiting the family grocery store of a couple of Italian brothers who hooked up with Young, said Thompson.
By then, Young was pulling numbers from a cardboard box, and policy regulars would gather around that box, watching the results as if they were peering into a crystal ball that held their future.
Indeed, policy was responsible for its share of crime and lawlessness as the racket grew and more policy kings were getting in on the game and battling for turf. Black ministers deeply opposed policy, preaching against it from their pulpits. Still, the city didn't make much of an effort to get rid of it in the beginning.
"The city's opinion was that it was a little hustle in the black community," said Thompson. "That made it grow because nobody was paying attention. It was generating a lot of revenue throughout the Depression in Bronzeville."
Policy, in its heyday from about the 1920s to the 1950s, did some good for the winners. It put food on the tables of struggling families. Children were sent to college on policy money. It also provided jobs.
Thompson says proceeds from policy at times helped bankroll the Negro Baseball League and even the boxing career of Joe Louis.
But the house is always set up so there are more losers than winners, and gangsters vied for their share of the cut.
"A faction of Al Capone's Mafia went after the black guys on the South Side making all this money," said Thompson. "And that led to the killing of one of the big policy kings."
The other black kings decided to pull together, but that couldn't sustain them. By 1952, policy had been put on trial, more policy kings had been murdered or jailed and the white mob had moved in, said Thompson.
"That was the end of policy [as a black establishment] and the beginning of white-controlled policy," he said. "To say the Mafia was controlling the money meant they were also controlling the vote and the neighborhood where the money was derived."
I've always been fascinated by the story of policy. I've overheard bits and pieces of the history from my mother and grandmother who grew up in Bronzeville.
Now, I'm enjoying Thompson's tale, which fills in many of the holes.
I think of policy every time I hear politicians touting gambling as an economic cure-all. Chicago wants a casino. Any number of suburbs want casinos. Last week, the Wisconsin-based Ho-Chunk Nation announced plans to build a casino and entertainment complex on 432 acres of land in south suburban Lynwood. The plan already is caught up in political wrangling.
In general, politicians want the revenue from legalized gambling. But nobody wants to deal with the organized crime that remains prevalent. In all the touting, they often are mum about the impact it has on the poor and people with addictions.
Politicians trumpet the notion that communities will benefit. But the house always is the biggest winner.
The gambling pie is a difficult one to slice. That's because it can't be sliced so carefully that you get only the good and none of the bad.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0405100160may10,1,5608468.co lumn?coll=chi-printmetro-hed
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
review from chicago sun times by curtis lawrence
Bronzeville's policy kings were early venture capitalists
July 7, 2003 BY CURTIS LAWRENCE Staff Reporter
They were digit barons, the 1-2-3-4 guys, and "digitarians." But most people remember them as policy kings, the African-American men who proved this city could run a numbers racket long before the state's first legal lottery numbers were pulled in 1974. Starting in the late 1800s, policy kings such as John "Mushmouth" Johnson, "Policy" Sam Young and the Jones brothers became the black community's ubiquitous bankers, philanthropists, businessmen and criminals.
HOW A POLICY GAME WORKED
*Players--including doctors, priests and grandmothers--would give their numbers to a policy writer, who would jot them down in his book.
*A three-numbered bet--the most popular--was called a "gig." A two-numbered bet was a "saddle."
*Twenty-four numbered balls were drawn from a small cylinder drum--the "wheel," which held 78 numbered balls.
*Drawings were held as often as four times a day. But, if the heat from the police was on, there might only be one drawing.
"Policy kings were the biggest and about the only philanthropists in the community," said Nathan Thompson, author of the self-published book, Kings, The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers. "They were the bank that aspiring African-American businessmen and women could go to when they couldn't go downtown," he said. "They were a ready source of venture capital." A Bronzeville preservation activist, Thompson, 43, traces his interest in the policy kings back to his youth on the South Side when he and his buddies would spend time talking about their favorite gangster movies. Once he asked a friend, "How is it that we know all this stuff about the Italian mob and we don't know anything about ourselves as African Americans?" The question resurfaced about 10 years ago when Thompson, in between jobs, was reading Nicholas Lemann's The Promised Land: The Great Migration and How it Changed America. "There was one line in the book about policy wheels, and that triggered all of these memories of things I had heard old-timers talk about in the neighborhood when I was growing up," said Thompson, who hopes his 512-page effort will spark a renewal in black history and preservation. When Thompson walked into the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at Woodson Regional Library, he entered a world of wheelers and dealers who, early on, pulled numbers from hats at South Side night spots.
By the 1930s policy had grown more sophisticated and moved out of the smoke-filled clubs and into corner grocery stores and other neighborhood venues. Each policy king had his own wheel and several stations. Thompson estimates there were as many as 30 wheels operating between 1933 and 1941. A policy writer would make the rounds with his ticket book equipped with carbons to take bets from customers who would pick from 78 numbers. The odds of getting three winning numbers was 26 out of 1,000, according to Nicholas Barron, a math professor at Loyola University. Not the greatest odds, but not the worst if the game was played fairly, which wasn't assured. The Tia Juana wheel was run by the Kelley boys from 51st and Michigan. The Tia Juana may have raked in as much as $80,000 a day from four daily drawings, Thompson said. Protection payoffs to cops and politicians could range from $50 to $300. The kings lived the life of fine clothes and fancy cars. But with the white mob moving in on their action, they also lived on the edge. Policy king Walter Kelley was gunned down on Jan. 8, 1939, near 30th and Indiana at age 51.
During the good times, policy kings were the black community's bank and employer. "The economy of the black community of Chicago in the earlier part of the 20th century was so circumscribed by segregation and economic discrimination that the policy industry really generated a lot of the ready cash that flowed around in Bronzeville," said Michael Flug, senior archivist for the Harsh Collection at Woodson. In turn, the policy kings put a lot of their earnings into legitimate enterprises, such as funding writers, car dealerships and churches.
The definitive end of the kings' rule came on Aug. 4, 1952, when Theodore "Ted" Roe, who ran the Harlem Bronx with the Jones brothers, was gunned down. Aside from running a smooth operation, Roe was remembered for paying hospital bills for newborns and funerals for the dead. "We call men like Theodore Roe 'kings,'" Rev. Richard Keller eulogized. "He contributed greatly to the hopes and lives of a people."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/books/cst-nws-policy07.html Copyright © The Sun-Times Company
'KINGS' Excerpt 1
ABOUT BRONZEVILLE
To look at the neighborhood today you'd never know it, but if you were African American and living in the first half of last century, the place to be was on Chicago's Southside, a place known to ethnic Whites as the Black Belt for it's Negro population. But to those who lived there, and to their friends and family abroad, it was called Bronzeville. It was a thriving mecca of economic and political power, seated in the city's 2nd, 3rd and 4th wards, the promised land of socioeconomic opportunity and prosperity for the emancipated African American.
In a word, Bronzeville was great. What made it great were the people who lived, worked and played there: business and civic leaders with vision and clergymen who carried on the founding principles and traditions of our first Black churches. It's where the nation's first Black certified public accountants were working and supporting their families. There were great writers with a sense of the past, powerful political bosses with powerful allies, respected Pullman porters and longshoremen, doctors, lawyers, dentists, hotel owners and restaurateurs. Bronzeville was a place where great things were happening: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the world's first successful open-heart surgery, Jesse Binga built America's first Black-owned and operated state bank, and Rube Foster founded the Negro Baseball League. It was a place where a Black kid could grow up to be anything he or she wanted to be-- even mayor.
There were the great "strolls" like South Parkway with its magnificent greystones and mansions occupied by the prosperous and the influential. There was 47th Street, the new downtown Black America with its world class cafés like the Palm Tavern, serving the business and civic elite by day and busloads of stage performers from the Regal Theater by night. Then there was State Street-- the original "stroll" where the dark of night was eclipsed by the bright lights of hot jazz spots like the Elite Club and the Dreamland Café, accented with finely dressed colored folks and late model cars. It was the northern reality to southern dreams.
But Bronzeville had its share of poverty too; in fact, Chicago's ghettos were among the worst in the nation with seriously over-crowded living conditions brought on by old "Restrictive Covenants", this during the ever- present Great Depression. The name Bronzeville has been around since the 1910s but came of age on Saturday night, September 22, 1934. On that night, behind the walls of the Eighth Regiment Armory on Giles and 35th Street, Tiny Parham's Orchestra was swinging the night away as the first ever "Mayor of Bronzeville" was elected, the event that hallmarked a new era in "race progress" and Chicago's Black Experience.
The idea was the brainchild of James J. "Gentle Jimmy" Gentry, a local African American promoter who for years had bankrolled the "Miss Bronze America" pageants. Gentry hooked up with Robert S. Abbott, founding publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper, and Ed Jones, the "King of Policy Kings" who controlled an army of racketeers, and the new Bronzeville was born.
For all of the prosperity associated with the legacy of Bronzeville, the era had strong roots in what the world today knows as the "Lottery." But make no mistake about it, in the first half of last century the lottery was known by its true name, "Policy", and flourished, albeit illegally, in nearly every Black community in the United States. It is a significant chapter in African American history-- little known and less talked about.
Policy became the biggest Black-owned business in the world with combined annual sales sometimes reaching the $100 million mark and employing tens-of-thousands of people nationwide. In Bronzeville, Policy was a major catalyst by which the black economy was driven. In 1938 Time magazine reported that Bronzeville was the "Center of U.S. Negro Business", and more than a decade later, Our World magazine reported that "Windy City Negroes have more money, bigger cars and brighter clothes than any other city…. The city which has become famous for the biggest Policy wheels, the largest funerals, the flashiest cars and the prettiest women, has built that reputation on one thing, money". Those attributions, however, were largely due to Policy, a business conceived, owned, and operated by African American men known by many names including "Digit Barons", "Numbers Bankers", "Sportsmen", "Digitarians", and "the 1-2-3-4 Guys"; but more often than not they were called "Policy Kings".
From: 'KINGS'
The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings
and Numbers Racketeers
An Informal History by Nathan Thompson
Published by The Bronzeville Press ISBN: 0972487506
'KINGS' Excerpt 2
In the 1930s and '40s, there was a National Brotherhood of Policy Kings that permeated practically every Black community in the country but especially Chicago, the "Policy Capital of the World," home of the 5th Police District, Wabash Station, and the 28th Municipal Circuit Courthouse, commonly known as Wabash Court.
In the world of Policy, its Kings were the original "Good Fellows", not because they were gangsters, which they were not, but because they fed the hungry and clothed the naked as virtual "Robin Hoods" and gave their people a sense of security. In the 1920s, when Robert Abbott founded the "Chicago Defender Good Fellows Club" to feed the needy, many of its members were Policy men. Policy also played an important role in the professional sector as well. Policy Kings underwrote the establishment of several private dental and medical practices for professionals facing lack of placement options due to racial discrimination.
Chicago was special in those days because it was a wide-open town where anything went, and everybody who wanted a piece of the action got it, so long as that person supported the right political agenda. That, however, wasn't a problem for the Policy Kings because they controlled the Black vote, a vote that was growing stronger every day since Robert Abbott launched the Great Northern Drive in 1917, known today as the Great Black Migration. It caused hundreds of thousands of sharecrop-era Blacks to leave the South bound for Chicago and other parts north, and every arrival represented another vote in a changing political climate. With the Kings in control of that vote, Policy became the biggest political football in town. Ruthless political-battles-of-the-parties were fought over the Black vote, resulting indirectly in one Chicago mayor's murder. It was the last days of the Prohibition era and the last days of the underworld's principle source of income, bootlegged liquor. To make up for part of that lost income, White underworld bosses across the country launched bloody gun battles against the Policy Kings for control of the lucrative gambling rackets in America's Black Belts.
In Harlem the enemy was Dutch Schultz, in Cleveland the Mayfield Road Gang, in St. Louis it was Egan's Rats and in Bronzeville it was renegade factions of the Al Capone mob. Harlem and Cleveland both knuckled under early, but in Bronzeville the Policy Kings organized, fought back, and kept their rackets. Word spread fast that "Bronzeville's Policy Kings didn't take shit from anybody," as many still recall, and thus earned this Black metropolis its reputation as the "safe haven." As such, Bronzeville grew strong and remained the only African American Policy stronghold until the 1950s when the Mafia took over. Years later the state government took it from the Mafia and the Illinois State Lottery was born. Until that time, it was the same old story that it had been since the Anti Policy Act of 1905: Police, Politics and Policy.
...it came out originally in 1994 , i bought the book recently and although i have not yet completed it , from what i've read thus far , i have to give the brother his props ...
this is an era that was declining and ending as i was being born , but socially , politically and of cource financially , STILL effects black people today. it covers a significant portion of our story that touched every aspect of black life and needs to be preserved , told and most importantly LEARNED FROM by present and future generations...
long before the hip hop generation made "gettin paid" a popular slogan , the black policy kings and queens of "bronzevilles" all across america , not only were "gettin paid" , they were THE philanthropists of the black communities and spread the wealth around ...
unfortunately , as seems usual in america for black innovators /entrepreneurs , their creativity and success sounded their own deathknell as greedy envious outsiders took note of the huge sums of dollars being continuously recirculated throughout black communities by the policy game . the policy kings were assaulted and eventually defeated by a triumvirate of white politicians ,irish , jewish and italian gangsters and police .
then as today, white politicians used get tough on "negro crime" campaigns to promote themselves to white voters as crimefighters . negro crime , of course meant the black policy games . white politicians basically ignored white gambling operations during these campaigns and concentrated on disrupting the black policy games despite the generous bribes that the policy kings had been paying police and politicians for years .
in new york , harlem policy queen , madame stephanie st. claire eventually testified publicly before police corruption commission hearings and complained bitterly that the police and political bosses were still taking her bribe money yet arresting her employees and ruining her operation anyway .
when the repeal of prohibition ended bootlegging as their primary source of income , envious italian , jewish and irish mobsters all declared war on the black policy kings , but when the kings organized their own "soldiers" to fight back , they had also the added burden of fighting these wars while facing arrest from the crooked police for being blackmen and carrying weapons ... despite the triple attack , the policy kings of chicago held out for around 20 years until the 1950s when the last of them , teddy roe, was assassinated by italian mobsters .
after that , the mafia ran all of the nation's black policy banks , took the lion's share of profits , and gave NOTHING back to the black community .
across the nation ,these massive sums of black money daily went gushing out of the black communities like river water until the mid 1970s when state after state in the Us formed their own daily games of chance , making legal what they had for decades , locked up blacks for doing . now these black community dollars help fill state coffers--states that in general do NOT fund public education in black school districts at the same levels as they do for the more affluent ...
http://policykings.com/
http://policykings.com/kings-hot-sentinel1.jpg
'KINGS'
The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings
and Numbers Racketeers
An Informal History by
Nathan Thompson
Published by The BronzeVille Press®
Critically Acclaimed Bestseller!
The MOST SOUGHT AFTER BOOK of the YEAR!
KINGS chronicles the rise and fall of the Policy era, the obscured period in American history between Reconstruction and the modern Civil Rights era. It is the story of how Policy became the 'State Lottery'. Policy was the single biggest Black owned and operated business enterprise in the world, generating upwards of two hundred million dollars annually during the Depression, and controlled by a national brotherhood of African American men called Policy Kings. These men bankrolled the Negro Baseball League, banks, insurance companies, the career of boxing great Joe Louis, and untold medical and professional practices. They were also responsible for converting the Black vote from Republican to Democrat.
Critically Acclaimed!
"Required reading"
- Chicago Sun-Times
"...engulfs, engenders, enthralls!"
- Chicago Defender
"...A Uniquely Historical Book" - N'DIGO
*a review from chicago daily tribune by dawn turner trice (or scroll down and read excerpts from the book)
Gambling can be risky policy, no matter the name
Dawn Turner Trice
May 10, 2004
Before the lottery, before riverboat gambling and before casinos as we know them, there was a game called policy that ruled Chicago's South Side in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
What was policy? I'll put it this way: Thirty years ago when commercials began appearing on television publicizing the brand new Illinois Lottery game, some older African-Americans sitting around watching their screens sucked their teeth and said, "Child, that ain't nothing new, that's policy."
According to Chicago native Nathan Thompson, author of "Kings: The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers," policy was conceived around the late 1880s and was owned and operated for decades by black men called policy kings.
Policy players, lured by the possibility of hitting it big on a small bet, would pick a number combination, say 3-1-2, called a gig. A nickel wager could win you $5.
In the early days, winning numbers were pulled from the derby of Sam Young, policy's creator, as he stood on the corner of State and Madison Streets. Soon, Young moved his hustle south along State Street to a saloon.
By 1915, players could learn the winning numbers by visiting the family grocery store of a couple of Italian brothers who hooked up with Young, said Thompson.
By then, Young was pulling numbers from a cardboard box, and policy regulars would gather around that box, watching the results as if they were peering into a crystal ball that held their future.
Indeed, policy was responsible for its share of crime and lawlessness as the racket grew and more policy kings were getting in on the game and battling for turf. Black ministers deeply opposed policy, preaching against it from their pulpits. Still, the city didn't make much of an effort to get rid of it in the beginning.
"The city's opinion was that it was a little hustle in the black community," said Thompson. "That made it grow because nobody was paying attention. It was generating a lot of revenue throughout the Depression in Bronzeville."
Policy, in its heyday from about the 1920s to the 1950s, did some good for the winners. It put food on the tables of struggling families. Children were sent to college on policy money. It also provided jobs.
Thompson says proceeds from policy at times helped bankroll the Negro Baseball League and even the boxing career of Joe Louis.
But the house is always set up so there are more losers than winners, and gangsters vied for their share of the cut.
"A faction of Al Capone's Mafia went after the black guys on the South Side making all this money," said Thompson. "And that led to the killing of one of the big policy kings."
The other black kings decided to pull together, but that couldn't sustain them. By 1952, policy had been put on trial, more policy kings had been murdered or jailed and the white mob had moved in, said Thompson.
"That was the end of policy [as a black establishment] and the beginning of white-controlled policy," he said. "To say the Mafia was controlling the money meant they were also controlling the vote and the neighborhood where the money was derived."
I've always been fascinated by the story of policy. I've overheard bits and pieces of the history from my mother and grandmother who grew up in Bronzeville.
Now, I'm enjoying Thompson's tale, which fills in many of the holes.
I think of policy every time I hear politicians touting gambling as an economic cure-all. Chicago wants a casino. Any number of suburbs want casinos. Last week, the Wisconsin-based Ho-Chunk Nation announced plans to build a casino and entertainment complex on 432 acres of land in south suburban Lynwood. The plan already is caught up in political wrangling.
In general, politicians want the revenue from legalized gambling. But nobody wants to deal with the organized crime that remains prevalent. In all the touting, they often are mum about the impact it has on the poor and people with addictions.
Politicians trumpet the notion that communities will benefit. But the house always is the biggest winner.
The gambling pie is a difficult one to slice. That's because it can't be sliced so carefully that you get only the good and none of the bad.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0405100160may10,1,5608468.co lumn?coll=chi-printmetro-hed
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
review from chicago sun times by curtis lawrence
Bronzeville's policy kings were early venture capitalists
July 7, 2003 BY CURTIS LAWRENCE Staff Reporter
They were digit barons, the 1-2-3-4 guys, and "digitarians." But most people remember them as policy kings, the African-American men who proved this city could run a numbers racket long before the state's first legal lottery numbers were pulled in 1974. Starting in the late 1800s, policy kings such as John "Mushmouth" Johnson, "Policy" Sam Young and the Jones brothers became the black community's ubiquitous bankers, philanthropists, businessmen and criminals.
HOW A POLICY GAME WORKED
*Players--including doctors, priests and grandmothers--would give their numbers to a policy writer, who would jot them down in his book.
*A three-numbered bet--the most popular--was called a "gig." A two-numbered bet was a "saddle."
*Twenty-four numbered balls were drawn from a small cylinder drum--the "wheel," which held 78 numbered balls.
*Drawings were held as often as four times a day. But, if the heat from the police was on, there might only be one drawing.
"Policy kings were the biggest and about the only philanthropists in the community," said Nathan Thompson, author of the self-published book, Kings, The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers. "They were the bank that aspiring African-American businessmen and women could go to when they couldn't go downtown," he said. "They were a ready source of venture capital." A Bronzeville preservation activist, Thompson, 43, traces his interest in the policy kings back to his youth on the South Side when he and his buddies would spend time talking about their favorite gangster movies. Once he asked a friend, "How is it that we know all this stuff about the Italian mob and we don't know anything about ourselves as African Americans?" The question resurfaced about 10 years ago when Thompson, in between jobs, was reading Nicholas Lemann's The Promised Land: The Great Migration and How it Changed America. "There was one line in the book about policy wheels, and that triggered all of these memories of things I had heard old-timers talk about in the neighborhood when I was growing up," said Thompson, who hopes his 512-page effort will spark a renewal in black history and preservation. When Thompson walked into the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at Woodson Regional Library, he entered a world of wheelers and dealers who, early on, pulled numbers from hats at South Side night spots.
By the 1930s policy had grown more sophisticated and moved out of the smoke-filled clubs and into corner grocery stores and other neighborhood venues. Each policy king had his own wheel and several stations. Thompson estimates there were as many as 30 wheels operating between 1933 and 1941. A policy writer would make the rounds with his ticket book equipped with carbons to take bets from customers who would pick from 78 numbers. The odds of getting three winning numbers was 26 out of 1,000, according to Nicholas Barron, a math professor at Loyola University. Not the greatest odds, but not the worst if the game was played fairly, which wasn't assured. The Tia Juana wheel was run by the Kelley boys from 51st and Michigan. The Tia Juana may have raked in as much as $80,000 a day from four daily drawings, Thompson said. Protection payoffs to cops and politicians could range from $50 to $300. The kings lived the life of fine clothes and fancy cars. But with the white mob moving in on their action, they also lived on the edge. Policy king Walter Kelley was gunned down on Jan. 8, 1939, near 30th and Indiana at age 51.
During the good times, policy kings were the black community's bank and employer. "The economy of the black community of Chicago in the earlier part of the 20th century was so circumscribed by segregation and economic discrimination that the policy industry really generated a lot of the ready cash that flowed around in Bronzeville," said Michael Flug, senior archivist for the Harsh Collection at Woodson. In turn, the policy kings put a lot of their earnings into legitimate enterprises, such as funding writers, car dealerships and churches.
The definitive end of the kings' rule came on Aug. 4, 1952, when Theodore "Ted" Roe, who ran the Harlem Bronx with the Jones brothers, was gunned down. Aside from running a smooth operation, Roe was remembered for paying hospital bills for newborns and funerals for the dead. "We call men like Theodore Roe 'kings,'" Rev. Richard Keller eulogized. "He contributed greatly to the hopes and lives of a people."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/books/cst-nws-policy07.html Copyright © The Sun-Times Company
'KINGS' Excerpt 1
ABOUT BRONZEVILLE
To look at the neighborhood today you'd never know it, but if you were African American and living in the first half of last century, the place to be was on Chicago's Southside, a place known to ethnic Whites as the Black Belt for it's Negro population. But to those who lived there, and to their friends and family abroad, it was called Bronzeville. It was a thriving mecca of economic and political power, seated in the city's 2nd, 3rd and 4th wards, the promised land of socioeconomic opportunity and prosperity for the emancipated African American.
In a word, Bronzeville was great. What made it great were the people who lived, worked and played there: business and civic leaders with vision and clergymen who carried on the founding principles and traditions of our first Black churches. It's where the nation's first Black certified public accountants were working and supporting their families. There were great writers with a sense of the past, powerful political bosses with powerful allies, respected Pullman porters and longshoremen, doctors, lawyers, dentists, hotel owners and restaurateurs. Bronzeville was a place where great things were happening: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the world's first successful open-heart surgery, Jesse Binga built America's first Black-owned and operated state bank, and Rube Foster founded the Negro Baseball League. It was a place where a Black kid could grow up to be anything he or she wanted to be-- even mayor.
There were the great "strolls" like South Parkway with its magnificent greystones and mansions occupied by the prosperous and the influential. There was 47th Street, the new downtown Black America with its world class cafés like the Palm Tavern, serving the business and civic elite by day and busloads of stage performers from the Regal Theater by night. Then there was State Street-- the original "stroll" where the dark of night was eclipsed by the bright lights of hot jazz spots like the Elite Club and the Dreamland Café, accented with finely dressed colored folks and late model cars. It was the northern reality to southern dreams.
But Bronzeville had its share of poverty too; in fact, Chicago's ghettos were among the worst in the nation with seriously over-crowded living conditions brought on by old "Restrictive Covenants", this during the ever- present Great Depression. The name Bronzeville has been around since the 1910s but came of age on Saturday night, September 22, 1934. On that night, behind the walls of the Eighth Regiment Armory on Giles and 35th Street, Tiny Parham's Orchestra was swinging the night away as the first ever "Mayor of Bronzeville" was elected, the event that hallmarked a new era in "race progress" and Chicago's Black Experience.
The idea was the brainchild of James J. "Gentle Jimmy" Gentry, a local African American promoter who for years had bankrolled the "Miss Bronze America" pageants. Gentry hooked up with Robert S. Abbott, founding publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper, and Ed Jones, the "King of Policy Kings" who controlled an army of racketeers, and the new Bronzeville was born.
For all of the prosperity associated with the legacy of Bronzeville, the era had strong roots in what the world today knows as the "Lottery." But make no mistake about it, in the first half of last century the lottery was known by its true name, "Policy", and flourished, albeit illegally, in nearly every Black community in the United States. It is a significant chapter in African American history-- little known and less talked about.
Policy became the biggest Black-owned business in the world with combined annual sales sometimes reaching the $100 million mark and employing tens-of-thousands of people nationwide. In Bronzeville, Policy was a major catalyst by which the black economy was driven. In 1938 Time magazine reported that Bronzeville was the "Center of U.S. Negro Business", and more than a decade later, Our World magazine reported that "Windy City Negroes have more money, bigger cars and brighter clothes than any other city…. The city which has become famous for the biggest Policy wheels, the largest funerals, the flashiest cars and the prettiest women, has built that reputation on one thing, money". Those attributions, however, were largely due to Policy, a business conceived, owned, and operated by African American men known by many names including "Digit Barons", "Numbers Bankers", "Sportsmen", "Digitarians", and "the 1-2-3-4 Guys"; but more often than not they were called "Policy Kings".
From: 'KINGS'
The True Story of Chicago's Policy Kings
and Numbers Racketeers
An Informal History by Nathan Thompson
Published by The Bronzeville Press ISBN: 0972487506
'KINGS' Excerpt 2
In the 1930s and '40s, there was a National Brotherhood of Policy Kings that permeated practically every Black community in the country but especially Chicago, the "Policy Capital of the World," home of the 5th Police District, Wabash Station, and the 28th Municipal Circuit Courthouse, commonly known as Wabash Court.
In the world of Policy, its Kings were the original "Good Fellows", not because they were gangsters, which they were not, but because they fed the hungry and clothed the naked as virtual "Robin Hoods" and gave their people a sense of security. In the 1920s, when Robert Abbott founded the "Chicago Defender Good Fellows Club" to feed the needy, many of its members were Policy men. Policy also played an important role in the professional sector as well. Policy Kings underwrote the establishment of several private dental and medical practices for professionals facing lack of placement options due to racial discrimination.
Chicago was special in those days because it was a wide-open town where anything went, and everybody who wanted a piece of the action got it, so long as that person supported the right political agenda. That, however, wasn't a problem for the Policy Kings because they controlled the Black vote, a vote that was growing stronger every day since Robert Abbott launched the Great Northern Drive in 1917, known today as the Great Black Migration. It caused hundreds of thousands of sharecrop-era Blacks to leave the South bound for Chicago and other parts north, and every arrival represented another vote in a changing political climate. With the Kings in control of that vote, Policy became the biggest political football in town. Ruthless political-battles-of-the-parties were fought over the Black vote, resulting indirectly in one Chicago mayor's murder. It was the last days of the Prohibition era and the last days of the underworld's principle source of income, bootlegged liquor. To make up for part of that lost income, White underworld bosses across the country launched bloody gun battles against the Policy Kings for control of the lucrative gambling rackets in America's Black Belts.
In Harlem the enemy was Dutch Schultz, in Cleveland the Mayfield Road Gang, in St. Louis it was Egan's Rats and in Bronzeville it was renegade factions of the Al Capone mob. Harlem and Cleveland both knuckled under early, but in Bronzeville the Policy Kings organized, fought back, and kept their rackets. Word spread fast that "Bronzeville's Policy Kings didn't take shit from anybody," as many still recall, and thus earned this Black metropolis its reputation as the "safe haven." As such, Bronzeville grew strong and remained the only African American Policy stronghold until the 1950s when the Mafia took over. Years later the state government took it from the Mafia and the Illinois State Lottery was born. Until that time, it was the same old story that it had been since the Anti Policy Act of 1905: Police, Politics and Policy.
posted by dsekou at 12:32 PM
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