We have pointed to the misguided tendency to minimize the size and extent of the Negro population. If more than half of Washington’s population is not black, the per capita crime rate is even more appalling.
Like white crime, Negro crime is organized and syndicated. This does not mean every rapist, hold-up man and car-thief takes orders from above. But it means that when he gets in trouble he does seek certain directed sources for bail-bonds, lawyers and fixers.
Policy-sellers, bookmakers’ runners, reefer peddlers and junk salesmen are employed by an organization which protects them also.
The process, as it works here, will be described in detail in the chapters devoted to crime and law enforcement, as it is part of the general picture of organized evil.
In Washington, as in other cities, Negro crime on the consumer and go-between levels is operated and controlled by Negroes. They report to, kick back to, and make their fixes at upper levels with, white criminals. The topmost control rests in the hands of the international Syndicate, the Mafia, the Unione Siciliano. The Washington Negro crime-ring has more autonomy than usual, because there are few Sicilians and even fewer interested in crude crime. The national Syndicate prefers not to show its bloody hands openly in the capital, but lurks in the background—in New York, principally.
The most powerful Washington Negro is the aforementioned Puddin’ Head Jones. Jim Yellow Roberts is the boss of dope and reefers. He makes his buys in wholesale lots in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, direct from the importers. While temporarily embarrassed by a jail sentence, Roberts continued to run the Negro dope trade.
“Whitey” Simpkins is king of the Black Belt’s numbers racket. Johnny W. Carter, who owns the Club Bali, a black-and-tan resort, is one of the gamblers’ chiefs. Their payoff is a percentage which eventually reaches the Syndicate through channels which will be set forth in detail in the chapter devoted to dope and gambling in Washington.
One of Washington’s most important Negro underworld figures is Lamarr (Polly) Brown who has been implicated in every form of illegality from operating after-hour clubs to the sale of narcotics. Odessa Madre, known as the “Queen of the Fences,” is just what her honorific implies.
Following the white pattern, the largest, gayest and most colorful Negro section is also laid out in NW. This part of town abounds with colored flats where a white man may take a white or colored woman. These holes sell gin without licenses, provide bedroom accommodations for those who want them, and girls for those who don’t have them.
Many Negro cab-drivers pimp for white girls, first getting acquainted with them when they pick them up as passengers. They set them up in apartments, most of which are in NW, and sell their services to white or colored men. These cabbies also handle reefers and after-hour liquor.