Overview
The "Black Mafia," was formed to coordinate and consolidate historic black crime in numbers, prostitution, and extortion of legitimate businesses, while combining with the rising drug demand in Philadelphia. It can be argued that their success drove legitimate black business and capital, such as the numerous successful African American owned banks, medical practices, stores, landlords, and other AA business to escape the city as segregation pressures faded. Angelo Bruno, the don of the Philadelphia crime family, discouraged drug dealing in South Philadelphia, but could not prevent deals being made by the New York mafia families such as the Gambino Crime Family, which were doing business with the growing black organized crime that became the Black Mafia until black New York drug lord Frank Mathews became their supplier. Bruno turned away from renegades who "did business" with, or supplied, the black drug lords, so long as they met their financial obligations to him and to the New York families. In fact, a rough outline of Italian organized crime (OC) east of Broad Street, with Black OC west of Broad Street became a shorthand to describe South Philadelphia's hidden forces for decades, damning efforts at urban renewal.
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