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Black Brothers, Inc. : The Violent Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia Black Mafia
Black Brothers Inc The Violent Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia Black Mafia Author:Sean Patrick Griffin The Black Mafia was one of the bloodiest, and least known, crime groups in modern US history. From its inception in Philadelphia's black ghettos in the late 1960s, it grew to become a citywide organization with links across the Eastern Seaboard. Holding regular, minuted meetings for up to 60 affiliates, the syndicate - known in its "legitimate" ... more »guise as Black Brothers Incorporated - appointed treasurers, "investigators" and enforcers and came to control drug dealing, loansharking, numbers racketeering, armed robbery and extortion.Sean Patrick Griffin, a former Philadelphia cop turned academic, reveals how the group was founded in 1968 by the hulking Sam Christian, who gathered around him a ferocious crew of gunmen. They ruthlessly eliminated rivals and were soon carrying out "hits" for the Black Muslims, who ultimately controlled political and street power in many neighborhoods. They took on the existing La Cosa Nostra crew in the city, strong-arming the mob's associates into paying for protection, and cowed the brutal 20th and Carpenter Street Gang. The Black Mafia was responsible for more than 40 killings, the most chilling being the massacre of two adults and five children in Washington, DC, in 1973 in a feud between rival Muslim factions. Despite the intense police pressure and arrests that followed, they continued to operate with vigor, exploiting their ties to high-profile lawyers, politicians and civil rights leaders.A heavy round of convictions and lengthy sentences in the mid-1980s shattered the Black Mafia's strength-only for their "youth" branch to re-emerge as the Junior Black Mafia, a potent and equally destructive force.Researched with scores of interviews and unique access to informant logs, witness statements, wiretaps and secret FBI files, Black Brothers, Inc. is the first serious account of a growing phenomenon-African American organized crime-and its consequences, and a landmark investigation into the modern urban underworld.« less