![]() Operator, had also been feeling the effects of Schultz’s attempted takeover. Luciano, who was also a prominent racketeer and New York cardroom Clair’s withdrawal from Harlem’s rackets operations, Bumpy kidnapped and murdered over 40 people. In the years between their meeting and St. Subsequently, she handed the business over to Johnson. In 1935, Schultz’s attempts to monopolize the numbers gameĮnded abruptly after Italian mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano ordered a hit onĪround the same time (perhaps due to his murder), St. Johnson’s wife, Mayme Hatcher, noted in her biography that he waged a “guerrilla war of sorts” and picked off Schultz’s men one by one. Schultz, in particular, was a target of Johnson’s His help, and together they waged war against the most prominent crime bosses Nicknamed the “Queen of the Policy Rackets,” she enlisted While many independent bookmakers capitalized on the numbers racket, Bronx mob boss Dutch Schultz bulldozed almost every bookie into working for him. With bets starting at just a penny, the game was predominantly played in poor and working-class neighborhoods. Though card rooms offering games like poker and blackjack were flourishing in cities across America, it was the numbers game that took over Harlem.Īlso known as the numbers racket or Italian lottery, it was an illegal lottery popularized in the 1920s and 30s. He invited Bumpy to work for him, protecting Harlem’s high-profile While Jonhson was still young, he met William “Bub” Hewlett,Ī gangster who admired Bumpy’s boldness when he refused to leave Bub’s Protection and committing armed robberies.Īnd by 17, Bumpy found himself a resident of the Elmira Reformatory. That Bumpy would eventually become one of the most infamous crime bosses in Newīy the age of 15, Johnson was hanging around with a wrongĬrowd and working odd jobs, as well as playing pool and shooting dice forīy the age of 16, he and his gang of merry men were selling Willie was sent to live with family in Harlem.īumpy followed Willie not long after, and it was in Harlem Fearful that a lynch mob would attack him, When Johnson was 10 years old, his brother Willie wasĪccused of murdering a white man. ![]() His family lived in constant fear of racial violence. Living in the Deep South during the Segregation Era, Bumpy was raised against a torrid backdrop of racism and oppression. The Earlyīumpy Johnson was born in South Carolina in 1905. Whose criminal acts were inextricably linked to his race.īy the time he died in 1968, Bumpy had become the anti-hero of Harlem. The war between Harlem bookies and the Italian mafia, Johnson was a figure Philosopher, philanthropist, and devoted father.įrom fleeing his home to avoid racial persecution to ending At the same time, he was a published poet, Throughout his 40-year career, Bumpy was a bookmaker,īodyguard, pimp, and drug lord. Which he spent in and out of the most notorious prisons in America. ![]() Of his head, though some attribute it to the number of enemies heīumpy’s criminal activity spanned over four decades, half of His nickname originated from the unusual growth on the back In the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Yet, as a respected confidante of Malcolm X, Bumpy had aĬonflicting morality that earned him his community’s fear, love, andĮllsworth Raymond “Bumpy” Johnson was a mob boss He dominated the neighborhood’s illegal gambling scene and ruled with an iron ![]() ![]() This is the story of a man that was all of theīumpy Johnson was a 20 th-century Harlem crimeįigure revered and reviled by the public. If you think we got confused and wrote about severalĭifferent people, think again. īookmaker and mob boss, a drug lord and brutal murderer,ĭevoted family man, avid reader of philosophy, poet, and philanthropist. ![]()
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