0:03 The Cotton Club, 142nd Street and Lennox
0:07 Avenue, Harlem, New York. December 4th, 1929.
0:09 1929.
0:11 The most famous nightclub in America.
0:13 Where Duke Ellington's orchestra played
0:16 seven nights a week. Where Cab Callaway
0:18 invented the word hidey-ho. Where
0:21 Josephine Baker danced, Ethel Waters
0:24 sang, and Bill Bojangles Robinson tapped
0:26 his way into history. A thousand white
0:29 faces in evening wear. Champagne glasses
0:31 catching the spotlight. Cigarette smoke
0:34 thick enough to cut with a knife. Not
0:36 one black customer. Wall-to-wall
0:38 segregation enforced by armed bouncers
0:42 at the door. Whites only in Harlem. In
0:44 the heart of black America's cultural
0:48 capital on stage, brilliance in the
0:50 audience. Apartheid. And in the back
0:54 office, Oni Madden, Irish bootleger,
0:57 convicted murderer. parrolled in 1923
0:59 after serving eight years for killing a
1:01 man in a street fight. Owner of the
1:03 Cotton Club, the most profitable
1:05 nightclub in North America.
1:08 On this December night in 1929, he'll
1:12 count $8,000 in revenue. That's $140,000
1:16 in today's money from one night. Where's
1:19 the money coming from? Bootleg whiskey
1:23 $3 a shot. Cover charge $5 per person.
1:26 Minimum spend $15 per table. Slot
1:29 machines in the basement. And the music,
1:31 the music is just the bait. Duke
1:34 Ellington earns $750
1:37 a week. The highest paid black band
1:39 leader in America. Madden earns that
1:41 much before midnight. But here's what
1:44 they don't show you in the movies. Three
1:47 blocks away, another kind of nightclub.
1:50 No famous name, no white audiences, just
1:53 a brownstone apartment. second floor
1:55 where a hundred black Harlemmites are
1:57 packed shoulder-to-shoulder dancing to a
1:59 piano player who's improvising because
2:00 he's been playing for four hours
2:02 straight and ran out of songs 2 hours
2:06 ago. This is a rent party. And the woman
2:09 who lives here, she's collected $237
2:13 tonight. 50 cents admission, 25 cents
2:16 per drink, and a tip jar by the piano.
2:18 That's more money than she makes in 6
2:20 weeks working as a domestic servant for
2:22 a white family downtown. She'll pay her
2:27 rent tomorrow. $40. The rest she'll save
2:29 it because next month the same thing
2:31 happens all over again.
2:34 Now, four blocks north. A storefront
2:37 with blacked out windows. No sign. You
2:40 knock three times. A slot opens. Someone
2:42 looks you over. And if they like what
2:46 they see, you're in. Inside, 30 men and
2:49 women huddled around a table. A man in a
2:51 vest is pulling numbers from a canvas
2:56 bag. Someone shouts 72. A woman screams,
2:58 clutches a ticket, and starts crying.
3:03 She just won $300. She bet 50. That's a
3:06 600 to1 payout. This is a policy bank.
3:09 Numbers gambling. The Harlem lottery.
3:13 And the man running it, Casper Holstein.
3:15 born in the Virgin Islands, arrived in
3:19 New York in 1913 with $6 in his pocket.
3:22 Tonight, December 4th, 1929, his 30
3:24 policy banks across Harlem will collect
3:28 $60,000 in bets. He'll pay out 20,000 in
3:32 winnings. The rest $40,000
3:36 in one day. That's $800,000 in today's
3:40 money. Per week, $4 million. Per year,
3:43 200 million. And what does he do with
3:46 it? He funds the Harlem Renaissance.
3:48 Last month, he gave Langston Hughes
3:51 $1,000 so he could quit his bus boy job
3:53 and write poetry full-time. Two months
3:56 ago, he paid for Zora Neil Hursten's
3:59 research trip to the South. He bankrolls
4:01 black theater productions, sponsors
4:04 literary contests, and keeps Opportunity
4:06 magazine alive. The greatest artistic
4:09 movement in American history, funded by
4:12 illegal gambling. And finally, one more
4:14 scene. Convent Avenue, the most
4:17 exclusive street in Harlem. A five-story
4:20 townhouse that cost $200,000.
4:22 The owner is inside throwing a party.
4:25 Champagne imported from France. Live
4:28 jazz quartet in the corner. 50 guests, a
4:30 mix of artists and criminals. Langston
4:32 Hughes is talking to Stephanie St.
4:34 Clair, the only woman in New York who
4:37 runs her own policy operation. Zoranil
4:39 Hursten is laughing with a man who just
4:41 got out of prison for shooting a rival
4:43 numbers banker. And in the center of it
4:46 all, the host, Aalia Walker, daughter of
4:49 Madame CJ Walker, the first black woman
4:52 millionaire in America. She inherited $2
4:55 million when her mother died in 1919.
4:58 Tonight, this party will cost 10,000.
5:00 Four scenes, one night, one
5:04 neighborhood. December 4th, 1929.
5:07 They said black culture was primitive,
5:10 savage, not art, just noise. They said
5:13 jazz was the devil's music, that black
5:15 people couldn't create anything America
5:17 would pay to see. They said Harlem was a
5:20 slum, a ghetto, a place where nothing
5:22 good could ever grow. They were
5:24 catastrophically wrong. But here's what
5:26 they don't teach you in school. What
5:28 they leave out of the documentaries.
5:31 What gets erased from the history books.
5:33 The greatest artistic movement in
5:35 American history was funded by
5:37 bootleggers, built by gangsters, and
5:39 controlled by the same criminal
5:41 underworld that made Prohibition era New
5:44 York the most dangerous city in America.
5:46 The Harlem Renaissance wasn't just
5:49 Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington. It
5:52 was on Madden and Casper Holstein. It
5:54 was rent parties where musicians got
5:56 paid in bootleg jin and whatever was
5:59 left in the tip jar. It was policy banks
6:02 that extracted millions from the poorest
6:04 black neighborhood in America and
6:06 funneled just enough back to keep the
6:09 artists alive. This is the story of how
6:12 crime and culture became inseparable.
6:14 How segregation created an economic
6:16 ecosystem where the only people willing
6:18 to invest in black art were criminals
6:20 because they were the only ones with
6:22 money the white establishment couldn't
6:25 control. How the Cotton Club and the
6:26 Policy Racket and the Rent Party Circuit
6:29 formed a triangle that created jazz,
6:31 birthed the Lindy Hop, and gave America
6:34 its only original art form. This is the
6:36 story of the Harlem Renaissance
6:38 underworld. And it starts 20 years
6:42 earlier when Harlem wasn't black at all.
6:44 Harlem, Manhattan. If you walk down
6:46 Linux Avenue that year, you'd see German
6:50 bakeries, Irish saloons, Italian grocery
6:53 stores, and Jewish tailor. middle class,
6:57 immigrant, white, black people. They
6:59 lived downtown in a neighborhood called
7:02 the Tenderloin around 30th Street.
7:04 Harlem was where white people moved to
7:06 escape them. And the neighborhood had
7:08 been built for wealthy white families in
7:10 the 1880s. Grand brownstones, wide
7:13 boulevards, treeline streets. But by
7:17 1910, it was in trouble. Real estate
7:19 developers had overbuilt. Too many
7:22 apartments, not enough tenants. Property
7:25 values were collapsing. And into that
7:27 crisis walked a black real estate agent
7:30 named Philip Payton. Payton saw an
7:32 opportunity. White landlords couldn't
7:34 fill their buildings. Black families
7:36 downtown were desperate for better
7:38 housing, crammed into tenementss where
7:40 tuberculosis killed thousands every
7:44 year. So Payton made a pitch. Rent to
7:46 black tenants. They'll pay more than
7:48 white tenants because they have no other
7:50 options and they'll take care of the
7:52 properties because they're grateful to
7:54 be there. The white landlords were
7:57 horrified. Rent to black people in
8:00 Harlem, but they were also broke and
8:03 broke beats racist. Payton bought his
8:06 first building in 1904. By 1910, he
8:09 controlled 200 properties. The white
8:11 residents fought back. They formed
8:13 neighborhood associations, tried to
8:16 establish restrictive covenants, even
8:18 offered to buy out black tenants just to
8:21 make them leave. It didn't work because
8:23 something bigger was coming, something
8:26 no neighborhood association could stop.
8:29 The Great Migration. Between 1910 and
8:32 1920, 500,000 black people left the
8:35 South and moved north. They were fleeing
8:37 Jim Crow, fleeing sharecropping, fleeing
8:40 lynching. World War I created a labor
8:42 shortage in northern factories, steel
8:45 mills, meat packing plants, automobile
8:48 factories. They needed workers. And for
8:50 the first time in American history, they
8:52 were willing to hire black people.
8:55 Harlem became the destination. In 1910,
8:59 the neighborhood was 10% black, 14,000
9:05 people. By 1920, 73% black, 118,000
9:08 people. In a single decade, an entire
9:11 community displaced, rebuilt, and
9:13 reinvented itself. The largest internal
9:15 migration in American history, and
9:18 Harlem was ground zero. But here's what
9:20 that actually looked like on the ground.
9:23 It wasn't orderly. It wasn't planned. It
9:26 was chaos. Families arrived with
9:27 everything they owned in a single
9:30 suitcase. They had no jobs, no
9:34 connections, no money. Landlords saw
9:37 opportunity. A white family paid $30 a
9:39 month for a three-bedroom apartment. A
9:44 black family $60 for the same apartment.
9:46 And if you complained, there were 10
9:48 families behind you willing to pay 70.
9:51 So black families adapted. Three
9:54 families in one apartment. Grandparents,
9:56 parents, and children sleeping in
9:58 shifts. Living rooms converted to
10:02 bedrooms. Kitchens used 24 hours a day.
10:05 And still they couldn't make rent.
10:08 $60 a month when you're earning $15 a
10:10 week. The math doesn't work. And that's
10:13 where The Rent Party was born. The Rent
10:15 Party, the most important cultural
10:18 institution in Harlem's history. And it
10:21 started as an act of desperation.
10:23 You're 3 weeks late on rent, landlords
10:26 threatening eviction, and you have no
10:28 options. So, you do this. Print up a
10:31 hundred cards on cheap paper. Saturday
10:34 night fish fry. Music. dancing,
10:38 refreshments, 25 cents admission. Bring
10:40 your friends, you nail them to telephone
10:43 poles, hand them out on street corners,
10:46 pass them around church on Sunday.
10:47 Saturday night comes. You move the
10:49 furniture against the walls. You set up
10:51 a table with fried fish and potato
10:53 salad. You put out bottles of bootleg
10:56 gin. This is 1920. Prohibition just
10:58 started. Liquor's illegal, but
11:00 everyone's drinking. And you hire a
11:03 piano player. $5 for the night. By
11:05 midnight, 80 people crammed into a
11:07 two-bedroom apartment. Everyone paid
11:11 their quarter. That's $20. Gin sales,
11:16 $30. Food, 20 more. You've made $70 in
11:18 one night. You pay the piano player
11:21 five. You pay back the neighbor who lent
11:23 you money for fish and liquor. And
11:26 you've cleared $50. Enough for rent,
11:28 plus a little extra. And here's the
11:31 thing, the music was incredible because
11:33 rent parties needed music that could
11:36 last 6 hours minimum. And one piano
11:37 player couldn't just replay the same
11:41 songs all night. People would leave. So
11:44 they improvised. They invented. They
11:45 took rag time and started adding
11:48 syncopation, adding blues notes, adding
11:51 complex rhythms nobody had heard before.
11:55 They called it stride piano. James P.
11:58 Johnson, Willie the Lion Smith, Fats
12:01 Waller. These weren't famous musicians
12:03 yet. They were 20-year-olds getting paid
12:05 $5 to play rent parties six nights a
12:08 week. Fats Waller would tell the story
12:12 later. In 1920, he was the organist at
12:16 Abbisoninian Baptist Church, $15 a week.
12:19 Respectable job. His father was proud.
12:21 Then he played his first rent party.
12:24 Made $5 for 4 hours of work. Then
12:26 someone handed him a bottle of gin and
12:28 asked if he could play another party the
12:31 next night. Within a month, he quit the
12:34 church. Within a year, he was playing
12:37 seven rent parties a week, $35, more
12:40 than double his church salary. And the
12:42 music, the music he was creating at
12:44 those rent parties, improvising at 2 in
12:46 the morning for drunk dancers who just
12:48 wanted the beat to keep going, that
12:53 became jazz. By 1922, there were 2,000
12:56 rent parties every weekend in Harlem.
13:00 2,000. Do the math. 2,000 parties, 80
13:03 people per party. That's 160,000 people
13:06 participating in an underground economy
13:08 that was completely off the books,
13:10 invisible to the government, and
13:12 generating something new. Not just the
13:15 music, the whole culture, the way people
13:17 dressed, the dances they invented, the
13:20 slang they created. Rent parties were
13:23 incubators, but they were also illegal.
13:25 Serving alcohol without a license.
13:28 Operating an unlicensed business. Fire
13:31 code violations. 80 people in an
13:34 apartment built for five. The NYPD
13:36 should have shut them down instantly.
13:38 They didn't because someone was paying
13:41 the cops to look the other way. Enter
13:43 the bootleggers. Prohibition created the
13:47 modern American gangster. Before 1920,
13:49 organized crime was smallcale.
13:51 Protection rackets, gambling,
13:55 prostitution. After January 1920, when
13:58 the 18th amendment made alcohol illegal nationwide,
13:59 nationwide,
14:01 suddenly every American who wanted a
14:04 drink was a criminal. And the people
14:05 supplying those drinks became
14:08 millionaires overnight. In Harlem, that
14:11 meant the Irish and Italian mobs. Onie
14:13 Madden controlled bootleg distribution
14:15 in upper Manhattan. He owned breweries
14:17 in New Jersey, distilleries in the
14:19 Bronx, and a fleet of trucks that
14:21 delivered liquor to speak easys across
14:25 the city. And Harlem, Harlem was his
14:27 most profitable market because rent
14:29 parties needed liquor, and nobody could
14:32 afford to buy from legitimate sources.
14:34 There were no legitimate sources. So,
14:36 Madden made a deal. He'd supply the
14:39 liquor at wholesale prices. The rent
14:41 party hosts would sell it at retail.
14:44 He'd take a cut and in exchange he'd pay
14:47 the cops to leave everyone alone. $20 a
14:50 week to the beat cop, $100 a month to
14:53 the precinct captain. The economics
14:56 worked. A bottle of gin cost Madden $3
14:59 to produce. He sold it to rent party
15:02 hosts for $8. They sold drinks for 25
15:07 cents each, 30 drinks per bottle, $7.50
15:10 in revenue. Everyone made money. The
15:13 cops got paid and Harlem kept partying.
15:16 But Madden saw something bigger. He
15:19 looked at Harlem in 1922 and realized
15:21 this neighborhood is generating millions
15:24 in off the books economic activity. Rent
15:26 parties, underground nightclubs, illegal
15:29 gambling, and the people running it are
15:32 disorganized, independent, vulnerable.
15:35 So he started buying. Not violently, not
15:39 yet, just buying. He'd approach a rent
15:40 party host who'd been arrested too many
15:43 times, offer to pay their legal fees in
15:45 exchange for running their parties. He'd
15:47 find a corner speak easy doing good
15:50 business, offer the owner cash to become
15:53 a partner. By 1923, Oni Madden
15:56 controlled 30 properties in Harlem. Not
15:59 directly, he used Blackfront Men because
16:01 a white gangster owning property in
16:03 Harlem would attract attention. But he
16:06 owned them and he was converting them.
16:09 No more living rooms with a piano. Now
16:12 they were actual nightclubs. 30 seats, a
16:15 small stage, a bar, a bouncer at the
16:18 door. And that's when he heard about a
16:21 place on 142nd Street that was for sale.
16:23 But we're getting ahead of ourselves
16:26 because before the Cotton Club, before
16:28 Oni Madden reshaped Harlem nightlife
16:30 into a commodity for white consumption,
16:32 there was a different model, a
16:35 blackowned model. And it started with a
16:38 man named Baron Wilkins. Before the rent
16:40 parties, before prohibition, before the
16:43 Cotton Club, there was Baron Wilkins.
16:44 And if you want to understand how
16:46 Harlem's cultural renaissance got
16:50 funded, you start with him. Baron
16:52 Wilkins wasn't a gangster. He was a
16:56 businessman. Born in 1872, worked as a
16:59 porter, saved his money, and in 1910
17:01 opened the Exclusive Club on West 35th
17:04 Street. Not Harlem yet. This was before
17:07 the Great Migration. The exclusive club
17:09 catered to black middle-class
17:12 professionals, doctors, lawyers, Pullman
17:14 porters who made good money, live
17:18 ragtime music, respectable atmosphere,
17:21 no gambling, no prostitution. Wilkins
17:23 charged a dollar cover, served food and
17:26 non-alcoholic drinks, and by 1915 was
17:30 making $60,000 a year. That's 1.8 8
17:33 million in today's money. What Wilkins
17:36 proved was simple. Black culture could
17:38 be profitable if you created the right
17:40 environment. And when Harlem started
17:43 turning black after 1915, he moved
17:46 uptown and opened a bigger club on 134th
17:50 Street. Same model, respectable, middle
17:54 class, legal, and he made a fortune. But
17:56 the man who really understood the
17:58 economics of Harlem wasn't Baron
18:02 Wilkins. It was Casper Holstein. Casper
18:04 Holstein, born in the Danish Virgin
18:06 Islands in 1877.
18:08 His mother was a former slave. His
18:11 father unknown. The Virgin Islands in
18:14 the 1890s were economically dead. No
18:20 industry, no jobs, no future. In 1894,
18:22 at age 17, Holstein worked his way onto
18:25 a merchant ship as a deckhand. 3 years
18:28 later, he jumped ship in New York City.
18:30 He worked every job you could work as a
18:32 black immigrant in turn of the century
18:35 New York. Dock worker, porter, janitor,
18:38 delivery man. By 1912, he'd saved enough
18:41 to rent an apartment in Harlem, which
18:43 was just starting to turn black. He got
18:46 a job as a porter at a boarding house,
18:47 and that's where he learned about policy gambling.
18:49 gambling.
18:52 Policy, the numbers racket, the Harlem
18:55 lottery. It worked like this. You bet on
18:58 a three-digit number between 0000 and 999.
18:59 999.
19:02 Every day, a winning number was drawn.
19:05 If your number hit, you won 600 times
19:09 your bet. So, a nickel bet paid $3. A
19:12 dollar bet paid 600. The game wasn't
19:14 new. It had been brought to New York by
19:17 Cuban immigrants in the 1890s where it
19:20 was called Bolita. By 1910, there were
19:22 small policy operations in black
19:25 neighborhoods across the city. But they
19:26 were disorganized. Mom and pop
19:28 operations run out of barber shops and
19:31 grocery stores. Holstein saw what
19:34 everyone else missed. He saw that policy
19:37 was the perfect business for Harlem.
19:40 Here's why. First, the bets were tiny. A
19:44 nickel, a dime, a quarter. Poor people
19:46 could afford it. And in a neighborhood
19:48 where 70% of families couldn't make rent
19:50 without taking on debt, people were
19:53 desperate for a miracle. Policy sold
19:56 hope. Second, the overhead was almost
19:59 nothing. You didn't need a location,
20:01 just a guy walking around collecting
20:03 bets and a back room somewhere to count
20:06 the money. No inventory, no equipment,
20:09 no rent.
20:12 Third, and this is the key, the math was
20:14 rigged in your favor. The true odds of
20:17 hitting a three-digit number, 1 in
20:21 a,000. But policy only paid 600 to one.
20:24 That means for every $1,000 in bets
20:27 collected, the house paid out 600 in
20:30 winnings and kept 400. A 40% profit
20:33 margin guaranteed.
20:36 Holstein started small. In 1913, he
20:37 convinced the owner of the boarding
20:39 house where he worked to let him run a
20:41 policy bank out of the basement. He
20:43 borrowed $50 for the first day's payouts
20:46 in case someone won. He hired two
20:48 runners, guys who walked around the
20:50 neighborhood taking bets, and he started
20:51 distributing slips of paper with his
20:54 name on them. Holstein's number, fair
20:56 play guaranteed.
20:59 The first month, he collected $200 in
21:02 bets. He paid out $120 in winnings.
21:07 Profit $80. Not bad for a side hustle.
21:08 But Holstein understood something
21:12 crucial. trust. Other policy operations
21:14 were corrupt. They'd announce fake
21:17 numbers, refuse to pay out winners,
21:20 disappear with the money. Holstein did
21:22 the opposite. He always paid. He
21:24 published the winning numbers in the
21:26 local newspaper. He used the stock
21:28 market closing numbers to determine
21:31 winners. Totally transparent, couldn't
21:33 be rigged. Within 2 years, he was
21:37 running five policy banks. By 1920, he
21:41 had 30. and the money. By 1925, Casper
21:44 Holstein was collecting $60,000 per week
21:47 in policy bets. That's $4 million per
21:49 year in 1925.
21:53 In today's money, $140 million per year.
21:55 He became the richest black man in
21:58 Harlem. They called him the Bito King.
22:01 He wore custom suits, drove a Packard
22:04 limousine, lived in a townhouse on 139th
22:07 Street. He owned nightclubs, invested in
22:09 real estate, and employed 300 people
22:12 directly, another 2,000 indirectly as
22:15 runners and collectors. But here's where
22:17 the story gets complicated. Because
22:19 Holstein didn't see himself as a
22:21 criminal, he saw himself as a
22:23 businessman operating outside white law
22:25 because white law was designed to
22:28 exclude him. And he genuinely believed
22:30 that his money should flow back to the
22:32 black community.
22:35 In 1926, he established the Holstein
22:37 Prize, a $1,000 annual award for black
22:40 literature. That's $18,000 in today's
22:44 money. Langston Hughes won it in 1926
22:47 for his poem, The Weary Blues. That
22:49 prize allowed Hughes to quit his job as
22:52 a bus boy and write full-time. Holstein
22:54 funded Opportunity Magazine, the leading
22:56 journal of black arts and letters. He
22:58 gave money to theater companies,
23:00 sponsored art exhibitions, and paid rent
23:03 for writers who were struggling.
23:05 Zora Neil Hursten's research trip to the
23:08 south in 1927 where she collected the
23:10 folktales that became mules and men
23:13 funded by Casper Holstein. He justified
23:16 it this way. White people won't invest
23:19 in our culture. Fine. I'll make my money
23:21 from our people and give it back to our
23:24 artists. Let them call me a criminal.
23:27 history will call me a patron. And for a
23:31 brief moment, from about 1924 to 1928,
23:33 it looked like he might be right. The
23:35 Harlem Renaissance was exploding.
23:38 Langston Hughes, Zoran Neil Hursten,
23:42 Claude McCay, County Cullen, they were
23:44 all publishing, all getting national
23:46 attention. And behind every one of them
23:50 was Holen's money or someone like him.
23:52 But there was a moral problem nobody
23:54 wanted to talk about. The money funding
23:56 the Renaissance was coming from the
23:58 pockets of the poorest people in Harlem.
24:00 People who couldn't afford food were
24:02 betting their last nickel on policy.
24:05 People were going into debt to play. And
24:07 Holstein knew it. He knew his business
24:10 was predatory. He told a reporter in
24:13 1927, "People say I'm exploiting the
24:16 community." Maybe, but I'm also
24:18 employing 300 people who couldn't get
24:21 jobs anywhere else. I'm paying better
24:23 than any white employer would, and I'm
24:26 putting money back into black culture.
24:28 Show me a white businessman who's doing
24:31 that. The reporter didn't have an
24:34 answer. Because the truth was, Holstein
24:36 was right. Without policy money, the
24:38 Harlem Renaissance would have looked
24:41 very different. Langston Hughes might
24:44 have stayed a bus boy. Zora Neil Hursten
24:46 might have never finished college. Black
24:48 theater companies would have folded, but
24:51 also families were skipping meals to
24:53 play policy. Children were going without
24:55 shoes because their parents were chasing
24:59 a 600 to1 payout. And Holstein, he was
25:03 driving a Packard. By 1928, Casper
25:04 Holstein was running the most
25:06 sophisticated criminal operation in
25:09 Harlem. 30 policy banks, each one
25:12 processing 2,000 bets per day. a network
25:14 of runners covering every block from
25:18 110th Street to 155th. Collectors who
25:20 picked up the money three times daily
25:22 and an accounting system sophisticated
25:24 enough that Holstein could tell you at
25:26 any moment exactly how much he owed in
25:29 payouts and how much profit he'd make.
25:31 He was also politically connected. He
25:34 paid Tammy Hall $5,000 a month for
25:37 protection. In exchange, the police left
25:40 him alone. When rivals tried to muscle
25:42 in, the cops would conveniently raid
25:44 their operations and leave Holstein
25:47 untouched. He employed the community.
25:50 Runners made $15 a week, more than most
25:53 factory jobs paid black workers.
25:56 Collectors made 25. Bank managers made
25:59 50. In a neighborhood with 50%
26:01 unemployment, Holstein was the largest
26:03 private employer, and he funded the
26:05 Renaissance. But he also built the
26:07 infrastructure that Dutch Schultz would
26:10 later try to steal. And that war, the
26:12 war between Holstein's independent black
26:14 operation and the white mob's desire to
26:16 control it. That war would define the
26:20 1930s. And it would end the golden age.
26:22 But we're not there yet. Because first,
26:25 we need to understand what Holen's money
26:27 built. Not just the literary magazines
26:30 and the poetry prizes, the nightlife,
26:33 the clubs, the ecosystem where jazz went
26:35 from rent party improvisation to
26:38 America's music. And that story starts
26:40 with a failed heavyweight champion and a
26:44 converted boxing gym on 142nd Street.
26:47 Prohibition begins. The 18th Amendment
26:50 makes it illegal to manufacture, sell,
26:52 or transport alcoholic beverages
26:54 anywhere in the United States. The law
26:59 goes into effect on January 17th, 1920.
27:02 By January 18th, every speak easy in New
27:05 York is packed. Prohibition didn't stop
27:08 drinking. It stopped legal drinking. And
27:10 in that gap between law and reality,
27:12 Harlem's nightlife exploded. Before
27:15 Prohibition, Harlem had maybe 30 bars
27:18 and saloons, all legal, all licensed.
27:21 After prohibition, 500 illegal speak
27:25 easys within 6 months. By 1925,
27:27 2000, not restaurants with liquor
27:30 licenses, underground clubs, basement
27:32 operations, residential apartments
27:34 converted into drinking establishments,
27:36 and the rent party circuit became
27:38 professionalized. It wasn't just
27:40 neighbors helping neighbors anymore. It
27:43 was a business. A woman named Lulu May
27:45 operated seven rent parties
27:48 simultaneously in 1923, all in different
27:50 apartments she rented specifically for
27:53 that purpose. She'd hire three piano
27:55 players per night, rotate them between
27:57 locations, serve bootleg gin she bought
27:59 wholesale from Oni Madden's
28:02 distributors, and clear $300 per
28:05 weekend. That's $18,000 per year, more
28:08 than a black doctor made. The musicians
28:10 got paid, but they got more than money.
28:13 They got an education because rent
28:15 parties were where jazz got invented in
28:19 real time. James P. Johnson started
28:22 playing rent parties in 1918. He was
28:24 classically trained, could read music,
28:27 had played in respectable venues. But at
28:28 rent parties, nobody cared about
28:31 classical technique. They wanted rhythm.
28:34 They wanted dancing. So Johnson started
28:37 experimenting. He took ragtime, the
28:40 popular music of the 1910s, and made it
28:42 faster, more percussive. He developed
28:46 what became known as stride piano. The
28:47 left hand playing bass notes on the
28:49 first and third beats, chords on the
28:52 second and fourth, the right hand
28:55 improvising melodic lines on top. It was
28:57 physically exhausting. Stride piano
28:59 requires you to leap across the
29:01 keyboard, covering 10 keys with your
29:04 left hand while your right hand is doing
29:06 something completely different, but it
29:08 sounded like a full band. One piano
29:10 player could create the illusion of
29:13 bass, drums, and horns all at once. And
29:14 at a rent party where you couldn't
29:16 afford to hire multiple musicians, that
29:19 mattered. Willie the Lion Smith took it
29:22 further. He added blues notes, complex
29:24 harmonies, polyw rhythms he'd learned
29:25 from Caribbean immigrants in his
29:28 neighborhood. By 1921, he was the
29:30 highest paid rent party pianist in
29:34 Harlem. $10 per night, sometimes 20 if
29:36 the party was big enough. He'd play from
29:38 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., 8 hours
29:41 straight, improvising the entire time.
29:42 Because if you played the same song
29:45 twice, people would get bored and leave.
29:47 And then there was Fats Waller, born
29:50 Thomas Wright Waller in 1904, son of a
29:53 Baptist preacher, learned piano at
29:55 church, became the organist at
29:58 Abbisoninian Baptist Church at age 15.
30:00 Respectable job. His father was proud
30:03 and Fats hated every minute of it. He
30:06 played his first rent party in 1920, age
30:10 16. Someone handed him a bottle of gin.
30:12 And for the first time in his life, he
30:14 wasn't playing hymns. He was
30:17 improvising, making it up. And the crowd
30:20 loved it. By the end of the night, he'd
30:23 made $5, onethird of his weekly church
30:26 salary. Someone asked if he could play
30:29 again the next week. Within 6 months,
30:31 Fats quit the church. His father
30:34 disowned him. Fats didn't care. He was
30:36 making $30 a week playing rent parties,
30:38 more money than his father made as a
30:41 trucker. And the music, the music was
30:44 unlike anything America had heard. Fats
30:46 Waller would later say, "Rent parties
30:49 were my conservatory. I learned more
30:51 playing 8 hours straight for drunk
30:53 dancers than I ever learned in any music
30:56 school." Because you had to keep them
30:59 moving. If the energy dropped, people
31:01 left. If people left, you didn't get
31:04 paid. So you learn to read the room,
31:07 adjust on the fly, invent new rhythms to
31:10 keep them interested. That's jazz, not
31:12 playing what's written, playing what's
31:16 needed. By 1923, the Rent Party Circuit
31:18 had produced a generation of musicians
31:20 who were fundamentally different from
31:22 their predecessors. They didn't read
31:25 music, most of them. They played by ear.
31:27 They improvised. They incorporated
31:30 blues, ragtime, spirituals, Caribbean
31:33 rhythms, and created something new. They
31:35 called it jazz, though the name wouldn't
31:38 stick for a few more years. And here's
31:41 what made it revolutionary. It was black
31:44 music created by black musicians for
31:47 black audiences, funded by black money.
31:49 The white music industry had no access
31:52 to it. No white producer could walk into
31:55 a rent party and offer a record deal. No
31:57 white club owner could book these
31:59 musicians because they were playing
32:02 illegally in residential apartments. It
32:04 was the most authentically black
32:06 cultural space in American history. And
32:09 it couldn't last because white people
32:12 heard about it and they wanted in.
32:14 Downtown white socialites started
32:17 slumbing. That was the term slumbing.
32:19 Rich white people from Park Avenue and
32:21 Fifth Avenue would take cabs up to
32:24 Harlem, show up at rent parties, stand
32:26 in the back, and watch black people
32:29 dance. They'd drink the bootleg jin,
32:31 listen to the music, and leave feeling
32:32 like they'd done something daring and
32:35 exotic. The rent party hosts didn't
32:37 mind. White money spent the same as
32:39 black money, and white people tipped
32:42 better. But it changed the atmosphere.
32:44 It made the space self-conscious.
32:46 Performers started playing to the white
32:48 gays, exaggerating the primitive
32:50 elements because that's what white
32:53 audiences wanted to see. And some
32:55 musicians hated it. Willie the Lion
32:57 Smith refused to play any party that
33:00 advertised to white audiences. He'd say,
33:03 "This is our music, our space. The
33:05 moment we start performing it for them,
33:08 it stops being ours." But Fats Waller,
33:11 Fats didn't care. He'd take money from
33:14 anyone. And in 1923, he got offered
33:17 something bigger than rent party gigs. A
33:19 downtown club wanted to hire him.
33:22 Regular salary every night, not just
33:25 weekends. The catch? He'd be playing for
33:27 white audiences. And they wanted him to
33:30 act a certain way, smile more, be
33:32 entertaining, play the happy negro
33:36 pianist. Fats took the gig. He needed
33:38 the money. But something changed in him.
33:40 His friends said he started drinking
33:44 more, became bitter. In 1927, he wrote a
33:47 song called Ain't Misbehaving. It became
33:50 one of his most famous recordings. But
33:52 if you listen to the lyrics, really
33:55 listen. It's about selling out. Ain't
33:58 Misbehaving. I'm saving my love for you.
34:02 He's promising to be good, to behave, to
34:05 not cause trouble for you, for the white
34:07 audience, for the paycheck. And that
34:10 tension between artistic authenticity
34:12 and economic survival, that was the
34:14 story of the Harlem Renaissance in
34:17 miniature. Every artist faced it. Do you
34:19 create for your community or do you
34:22 create for the people with money? Do you
34:24 stay true to your vision or do you give
34:26 them what they want so you can eat? By
34:29 1925, the rent party circuit was still
34:32 thriving, but it was changing. The
34:34 purely community-based parties were
34:36 being replaced by semi-professional
34:38 operations. Entrepreneurs would rent
34:40 commercial space, hire multiple
34:43 musicians, charge higher admission, and
34:46 market specifically to white slmers.
34:48 These weren't rent parties anymore. They
34:51 were nightclubs. Underground,
34:54 unlicensed, illegal nightclubs. And
34:57 that's when Oni Madden made his move
34:59 because he'd been watching. He'd seen
35:01 thousands of white people paying to
35:04 experience black culture. He'd seen
35:07 musicians getting paid five, $10, $20
35:10 per night. And he'd done the math. If
35:12 you could create a space that was
35:14 legally safe for white audiences, that
35:17 had top tier black entertainment, that
35:19 served alcohol openly because the police
35:21 were paid off, and that charged premium
35:23 prices because you had a monopoly on
35:26 safety, you could make a fortune. In
35:29 1923, Jack Johnson's Club Deluxe went up
35:32 for sale. Johnson was the first black
35:34 heavyweight boxing champion, a cultural
35:37 icon, and he'd opened the club in 1920
35:40 as a showcase for black talent. But he
35:43 was a fighter, not a businessman. By
35:47 1923, he was losing $6,000 a month. The
35:50 club was too expensive to maintain. The
35:52 overhead was killing him, and he was
35:54 going broke.
35:57 Oni Madden bought it for $12,000, a
36:00 steal. He renamed it the Cotton Club and
36:01 he implemented a policy that would
36:03 define Harlem nightlife for the next
36:05 decade. Black performers, white
36:08 audiences only. Duke Ellington would
36:11 arrive four years later. Cab Callaway,
36:14 Ethel Waters, Bill Robinson, the
36:17 greatest black entertainers in America,
36:19 all performing for whites only crowds in
36:22 the heart of black Harlem at a club
36:23 owned by an Irish gangster who'd killed
36:26 a man with his bare hands. And the money
36:28 Madden made, he used it to buy more
36:31 clubs, more properties, more control
36:33 over Harlem's nightlife.
36:37 By 1930, Oni Madden controlled 35
36:39 nightclubs in Harlem. Not all of them as
36:41 famous as the Cotton Club, but all of
36:44 them profitable. All of them extracting
36:45 wealth from a neighborhood that was
36:48 generating culture at a rate America had
36:52 never seen. That culture, it was real.
36:54 The music was revolutionary. The
36:56 literature was groundbreaking. The art
36:59 was transforming American aesthetics.
37:01 But it was built on a foundation of
37:04 bootleg jin, illegal gambling, and white
37:06 money. And the artists caught in the
37:09 middle had to make impossible choices.
37:12 Langston Hughes wrote in 1926, "We
37:14 younger negro artists who create now
37:16 intend to express our individual
37:19 dark-kinned selves without fear or
37:22 shame. If white people are pleased, we
37:25 are glad. If they are not, it doesn't
37:28 matter. Beautiful words, radical words,
37:31 but also Langston Hughes was being
37:33 funded by Casper Holstein's policy
37:35 profits. And the magazines publishing
37:37 his poems, they were advertising in
37:39 white newspapers to attract white
37:41 subscribers. And the book deals he'd
37:43 eventually sign with white publishers
37:46 for white audiences. The Harlem
37:47 Renaissance wasn't happening in
37:50 isolation. It was happening inside an
37:52 economic system that required white
37:53 approval and criminal funding to
37:57 survive. And by 1928, that system was
37:59 about to collapse because the Italian
38:02 and Irish mobs wanted Harlem's money.
38:04 All of it. And they were willing to kill
38:07 for it. The golden age was almost over.
38:10 But first, it would shine brighter than
38:12 anyone thought possible.
38:15 Jack Johnson's Club Deluxe,
38:20 142nd Street and Lennox Avenue, 1920 to 1923.
38:22 1923.
38:24 Jack Johnson was the most famous black
38:27 man in America, first black heavyweight
38:30 boxing champion, defeated Jim Jeff in
38:33 1910, the great white hope, and white
38:35 America never forgave him. They
38:37 convicted him on trumped up charges
38:40 under the man Act, transporting a white
38:42 woman across state lines for immoral
38:45 purposes. He fled to Europe, lived in
38:49 exile for 7 years, came back in 1920,
38:51 and opened his club as a symbol. They
38:54 can't stop me from building something.
38:57 The Club Deluxe was magnificent.
39:00 500 capacity, two-tiered seating, a
39:03 massive dance floor, full orchestra pit.
39:05 Johnson hired the best musicians he
39:07 could find, paid them well, and kept
39:09 admission prices low so working-class
39:12 black Harlemmites could afford it. Mixed
39:14 crowd, black and white, socialites and
39:16 laborers. It was everything a nightclub
39:18 should be. And it was hemorrhaging
39:22 money. The overhead was catastrophic.
39:25 Rent, $800 per month. Staff payroll
39:29 3,000. Liquor costs 2,000. And that's
39:32 with bootleg prices. Johnson was taking
39:35 in maybe 4,000 per month in revenue. He
39:39 was losing 6,000 every single month. By
39:44 1923, he was $200,000 in debt. That's 3
39:46 million in today's money. He had no
39:50 choice. He had to sell. Oni Madden had
39:52 been waiting. He'd watched the Club
39:55 Deluxe for 3 years, watched it fail, and
39:58 he knew exactly why. Johnson was trying
40:00 to run a luxury nightclub like it was a
40:03 community center. Low prices, mixed
40:05 crowds, no vice beyond the bootleg
40:07 liquor. That model didn't work in
40:10 prohibition era Harlem. You needed
40:12 multiple revenue streams: alcohol,
40:15 gambling, protection rackets, and you
40:17 needed customers with money, white
40:20 customers. Madden offered Johnson $12,000.
40:22 $12,000.
40:25 It was insultingly low. The property
40:28 alone was worth five times that. But
40:32 Johnson was drowning. He took the deal.
40:35 In June 1923, Oni Madden became the
40:37 owner of the soon-to-be Cotton Club.
40:39 First thing Madden did, fire all the
40:42 staff. Second thing, install slot
40:44 machines in the basement, roulette
40:47 tables in the back rooms. Third thing,
40:50 whites only admission policy. Fourth
40:53 thing, black performers only. Let me
40:55 explain why that last part mattered.
40:57 Madden wasn't trying to showcase black
40:59 culture. He was creating a product for
41:01 white consumers.
41:04 Come to Harlem safely. See authentic
41:06 Negro entertainment. Experience the
41:09 exotic, primitive, thrilling culture
41:12 without any danger. The Cotton Club
41:15 marketed itself as a safari. You, white
41:17 customer from Park Avenue, can sit in
41:20 safety and watch the savages perform.
41:24 And it worked. It worked spectacularly.
41:28 Opening night, September 1923, Madden
41:32 charged $5 cover. That's $90 today.
41:36 Minimum spend per table, $15. That's
41:39 $270 today. For comparison, the average
41:43 Harlem family earned $20 per week. A
41:45 single table at the Cotton Club cost 3/4
41:47 of what a black family lived on for 7
41:51 days. But white Manhattan showed up.
41:54 Society columnists, Broadway producers,
41:56 bootleggers, Wall Street traders,
42:00 celebrities. They packed the club. 500
42:04 people, every table full. By midnight,
42:07 Madden had grossed $8,000 one night. And
42:13 the costs payroll 200, liquor 300, rent
42:17 $27, monthly rent divided by 30, profit $7,500
42:19 $7,500
42:22 in one night. Madden knew he'd struck
42:24 gold. But he also knew the entertainment
42:26 had to be spectacular because the Cotton
42:28 Club's real competition wasn't other
42:31 nightclubs. It was the rent parties, the
42:34 underground spots where white slmers
42:37 could have authentic experiences. Madden
42:39 needed to make the Cotton Club so good,
42:42 so professional, so safe that white
42:44 audiences would pay premium prices
42:47 instead of going underground. So he
42:49 invested. He brought in professional
42:51 choreographers, built elaborate stage
42:54 sets, jungle scenes with palm trees and
42:57 fake elephants, hired costume designers,
43:00 created a full review format, dancers,
43:03 singers, comedians, all scripted, all
43:06 timed perfectly. two shows per night,
43:09 1000 p.m. and 2:00 a.m., and he paid his
43:13 performers well by nightclub standards.
43:15 The Cotton Club chorus girls made $50
43:18 per week. That's double what they'd make
43:20 at a whites only Broadway theater. Lead
43:23 singers made 75 to 100. Musicians made
43:26 even more. Madden understood if you
43:28 wanted the best black talent, you had to
43:31 pay for it. But there were conditions.
43:34 Conditions nobody talked about publicly.
43:35 First, you performed what white
43:39 audiences wanted to see. Jungle music,
43:41 primitive rhythms, exotic dances,
43:43 costumes that were deliberately
43:46 sexualized. Grass skirts, bare midriffs,
43:49 feathers. The Cotton Club sold a fantasy
43:51 of Africa that had nothing to do with
43:53 Africa and everything to do with white
43:56 stereotypes of black sexuality and savagery.
43:57 savagery.
44:00 Second, you never acknowledged the
44:03 segregation. You smiled. You performed.
44:06 You entertained and after the show you
44:08 left through the back door because the
44:11 Cotton Club's dining room, its bar, its
44:14 tables, those were for whites only. The
44:15 performers weren't allowed to sit down
44:20 as customers ever. Third, you signed an
44:22 exclusivity contract. Once you worked
44:24 for the Cotton Club, you couldn't work
44:26 anywhere else in Harlem without Madden's
44:28 permission. He owned you. For some
44:31 performers, it was worth it. Steady pay,
44:33 professional environment, national
44:36 exposure. The Cotton Club broadcasts its
44:40 shows on CBS radio starting in 1927.
44:42 You perform at the Cotton Club.
44:44 Suddenly, your famous coast to coast.
44:47 For others, it was artistic death,
44:48 playing to white expectations,
44:51 reinforcing stereotypes, selling out
44:55 your culture for a paycheck. In 1924,
44:57 the Cotton Club was still finding its
44:59 footing. Madden cycled through band
45:02 leaders trying to find the right sound.
45:04 And then in December 1927,
45:06 everything changed because Duke
45:09 Ellington arrived. Edward Kennedy
45:12 Ellington, born in Washington, D.C. 1899.
45:13 1899.
45:15 Middle-class black family. His father
45:18 worked as a butler in the White House.
45:20 Duke, he gave himself the nickname,
45:22 learned piano as a child, formed his
45:26 first band at 17. By 1923, he'd moved to
45:28 New York, was playing rent parties and
45:32 small clubs, barely scraping by. In
45:35 1927, he was 28 years old, unknown
45:38 outside Harlem, and broke. His band was
45:41 booked at a small club on 139th Street,
45:45 making $40 per week total. That's $8 per
45:47 musician. Then, the Cotton Club's
45:49 regular band leader quit unexpectedly.
45:52 Madden needed a replacement immediately.
45:54 Someone recommended Ellington.
45:58 Duke auditioned on December 4th, 1927.
45:59 He walked into the Cotton Club for the
46:02 first time, saw the jungle set, the
46:04 whites only tables, the slot machines in
46:06 the back, and he understood exactly what
46:09 he was walking into. But he also
46:12 understood the opportunity.
46:14 National radio broadcasts, $750
46:16 $750
46:18 per week for the whole band, 10 times
46:21 what he was making. He took the job and
46:24 he made a decision. He'd give them what
46:26 they wanted, but he'd make it so good
46:29 they couldn't ignore his artistry.
46:32 Madden wanted jungle music. Fine.
46:34 Ellington created the jungle sound.
46:36 Growling brass, trumpets played with
46:38 plunger mutes to sound like animal
46:41 roars, pounding tomtoms, wailing
46:43 clarinets, music that sounded primitive
46:45 to white ears, but was actually
46:48 harmonically sophisticated, complex, revolutionary.
46:49 revolutionary.
46:52 White audiences heard savagery.
46:54 Musicians heard genius. Ellington was
46:57 doing both at the same time. The Cotton
47:01 Club broadcasts started in January 1928.
47:04 Every Saturday night, CBS radio carried
47:06 Ellington's orchestra live from the
47:08 Cotton Club to listeners across the
47:11 country. Suddenly, Duke Ellington wasn't
47:13 a Harlem band leader. He was a national
47:16 phenomenon. White musicians in Kansas
47:18 City and Chicago were studying his
47:20 arrangements. Black musicians everywhere
47:24 were trying to copy his sound. By 1929,
47:27 Duke Ellington was the most famous black
47:30 musician in America, and he was trapped.
47:32 The Cotton Club contract kept him locked
47:36 in. 750 per week was incredible money.
47:39 That's 15,000 in today's dollars, nearly
47:43 800,000 per year. But he couldn't tour,
47:45 couldn't record extensively, couldn't
47:48 play for black audiences, except when
47:51 Madden gave permission. And Ellington
47:54 knew what he was doing. Years later,
47:57 he'd say the Cotton Club was a
48:01 necessity. It wasn't a choice. In 1927,
48:03 there was no path for a black musician
48:05 to reach a national audience except
48:07 through white gatekeepers. Madden was
48:10 the gatekeeper. You could reject him on
48:12 principle and stay poor, or you could
48:14 work with him and use the platform to
48:16 build something bigger. I chose the
48:19 platform. I'm not proud of the jungle
48:21 sets, the segregated audience, the
48:23 costumes we made the dancers wear, but
48:25 I'm proud of the music. And the music
48:28 wouldn't exist without that stage. Cab
48:30 Callaway arrived at the Cotton Club in
48:33 1930, replacing Ellington when Duke
48:35 finally got released from his contract.
48:38 Callaway was 23 from Baltimore. Full of
48:42 energy and charisma, he created Hideyho,
48:44 the call and response that became his
48:47 trademark. White audiences loved it.
48:50 Thought it was hilarious, primitive.
48:52 Callaway didn't care. He was making
48:55 $1,000 per week. But Callaway told a
48:58 story later about a night in 1932.
49:01 He was backstage between sets, still in
49:04 his white tuxedo with tails. A white
49:06 couple tried to enter the backstage area
49:08 looking for the bathroom. The Cotton
49:10 Club bouncer stopped them, said,
49:13 "Performers only back here." The white
49:15 man pointed at Callaway and said, "But
49:19 that n-word is back here." The bouncer,
49:21 without hesitation, said, "He's not a
49:24 customer. He's entertainment." like the
49:27 piano. Callaway stood there in his
49:29 thousand per week tuxedo and realized
49:33 exactly what he was. Not an artist, not
49:37 even a person. Entertainment, an object
49:40 like the piano, like the jungle sets,
49:42 like the fake palm trees. He finished
49:46 his contract. He didn't renew. By 1933,
49:49 he was touring independently, playing
49:51 for integrated audiences in Chicago and
49:54 Detroit, making less money but sleeping
49:56 better at night. That was the Cotton
50:00 Club. It made careers. It paid well. It
50:03 broadcast black genius to America. And
50:05 it dehumanized everyone who worked
50:07 there. Both things were true simultaneously.
50:09 simultaneously.
50:12 You can't separate them. By 1930, the
50:15 Cotton Club was grossing $40,000 per
50:18 month. That's $840,000
50:22 today, nearly 10 million per year. Oni
50:24 Madden had turned a $12,000 investment
50:27 into a money printing machine. And he
50:29 wasn't alone. Because while the Cotton
50:31 Club was the most famous, it wasn't the
50:34 only model. Harlem had developed three
50:36 distinct nightclub models by the late
50:39 1920s. The Cotton Club was one, and then
50:41 there were the other two. Harlem had
50:44 become the nightlife capital of America.
50:46 More nightclubs per square block than
50:48 anywhere else on Earth. And three of
50:50 them tell you everything you need to
50:52 know about how race, culture, and
50:55 capitalism intersected in Prohibition
50:58 era New York. Model one, the Cotton
51:02 Club. We just covered it. Mobowned,
51:05 whitesonly audience, black performers,
51:07 segregated, extractive, but
51:09 professionally run and highly profitable.
51:10 profitable.
51:14 Model 2, the Seavoy Ballroom.
51:17 Opened March 1926.
51:22 Lennox Avenue between 140 and 141. And
51:24 it was different from the beginning. The
51:26 Seavoi was owned by two white Jewish
51:30 businessmen, Mo Gale and Jay Fagen. They
51:32 weren't criminals. They were legitimate
51:35 businessmen who saw an opportunity. But
51:36 here's what made them different from
51:39 Madden. They hired a black manager,
51:42 Charles Buchanan, and they gave him real
51:45 authority. Buchanan made one decision
51:48 that changed everything. Integrated
51:50 admission. Black and white customers.
51:53 Same door, same dance floor, same
51:57 prices. In 1926, America, that was
52:00 revolutionary. borderline illegal in
52:03 some contexts. But Buchanan believed and
52:05 convinced his bosses that the music was
52:07 good enough that white people would pay
52:09 to dance with black people or at least
52:12 in the same room. The Seavoy opened on
52:14 March 12th, 1926.
52:17 5,000 people showed up opening night.
52:19 They had capacity for 4,000. The fire
52:21 marshall almost shut them down before
52:23 the first song ended. The place was
52:26 mobbed. And here's why. The Seavoi was
52:30 massive. The dance floor was 250 ft
52:34 long, 50 ft wide, 12,000 square ft of
52:36 hardwood floor. Two band stands, so
52:39 music never stopped. When one band
52:42 finished, the other started immediately.
52:45 The Seavoy advertised no sitting down.
52:49 You came to dance, not to drink. Yes,
52:51 they served alcohol. This was
52:52 prohibition. Of course, they served
52:55 alcohol, but it wasn't the point. The
52:58 point was the music and the dancing.
53:00 Chick Webb became the Seavoy's house
53:02 band in 1927.
53:05 Webb was a dwarf, 4t tall, hunchbacked
53:08 from tuberculosis of the spine. He could
53:10 barely see over his drum kit, but when
53:13 he played, the floor shook. He was the
53:16 most powerful drummer in jazz, and his
53:18 band could swing harder than anyone. And
53:20 the dancers at the Seavoy invented the
53:23 Lindy hop. It happened organically in
53:26 1928. The Lindy Hop was the first
53:28 American dance form that incorporated
53:30 African movement vocabulary with
53:32 European partner dancing. You'd swing
53:35 your partner out, pull them back, throw
53:38 them over your hip, catch them midair.
53:40 It was athletic, improvisational,
53:44 joyful, and critically it was partner
53:47 dancing, not line dancing, not solo
53:49 dancing, partner dancing, which meant
53:52 black men dancing with black women,
53:54 white men dancing with white women, and
53:57 sometimes in the Seavoi where
53:59 integration was real. Black men dancing
54:02 with white women, white men dancing with
54:06 black women. In 1928 America, that was
54:08 scandalized. And that's exactly what
54:11 brought crowds. By 1930, the Seavoy was
54:14 doing $7,000 per week in revenue. That's
54:18 $520,000 per year in 1930.
54:21 11 million in today's money. Not quite
54:23 cotton club numbers, but close. And
54:25 here's the difference. The Seavoy had
54:28 black management taking salaries, black
54:30 musicians getting paid fairly, and black
54:33 and white customers mixing freely.
54:36 Charles Buchanan later said, "The Seavoi
54:38 proved something important. You didn't
54:40 need segregation to be profitable. You
54:42 didn't need to exoticize black culture
54:44 or make white people feel like they were
54:47 on safari. You just needed great music
54:50 and space to dance. That's it. That's
54:52 the whole business model." But even the
54:55 Seavoy had compromises. Buchanan wasn't
54:57 an owner. He was a manager. The profits
54:59 went to Gail and Fagen. And when
55:02 Buchanan wanted to expand, open a second
55:05 location, share an ownership, they said
55:08 no. He was valuable, but not that
55:11 valuable. And there was another issue,
55:13 the mob, because you couldn't run a
55:15 nightclub in Harlem without paying
55:18 protection. The Seavoy paid on Madden
55:21 $500 per month. Later, when Dutch
55:23 Schultz took over, they paid him a,000.
55:26 It was the cost of doing business. Pay
55:28 the mob or get bombed. Those were the
55:31 options. But at least the Seavoi tried.
55:33 At least it existed as an alternative
55:35 model. Proof that integration could
55:38 work. Proof that you could respect black
55:41 culture while profiting from it. And
55:44 then there was Model 3, Smalls Paradise,
55:49 opened October 1925 at 22947th
55:54 Avenue at 135th Street. Owner Ed Smalls,
55:56 black man born in South Carolina, moved
55:59 to Harlem in 1918, worked as a porter,
56:02 saved his money, and in 1925 bought a
56:05 building and opened a club. Smalls
56:07 Paradise was different from both the
56:09 Cotton Club and the Seavoi. It was
56:12 smaller, 400 capacity. It was
56:15 blackowned, and most importantly, it
56:18 catered primarily to black customers.
56:21 Yes, white slmers came. Smalls didn't
56:24 turn them away. Money was money, but the
56:27 vibe was black. The music was for black
56:30 audiences. The culture wasn't performed
56:33 for white consumption. It just was.
56:36 Smalls innovated constantly. He was the
56:37 first club owner to hire singing
56:39 waiters. They delivered drinks while
56:42 performing choreographed dance numbers.
56:44 He installed a dance floor that lit up
56:47 with colored lights. He brought in the
56:49 best bands before they were famous. paid
56:52 them $75 per week and let them play what
56:54 they wanted.
56:58 Smalls Paradise in 1926 was where black
57:00 Harlem went to celebrate, weddings,
57:03 birthdays, business deals. The Cotton
57:05 Club was where white people went to
57:08 watch black people. The Seavoi was where
57:10 both races went to dance together.
57:12 Smalls was where black people went to be
57:14 themselves. But Smalls was also the most
57:17 vulnerable. Because Ed Smalls didn't
57:19 have mob protection, he couldn't afford
57:23 it. He paid the police $50 per week to
57:25 ignore prohibition violations, but he
57:27 didn't have the muscle to fight off
57:31 rivals. In 1928, Dutch Schultz sent men
57:33 to Smalls demanding a $1,000 per month
57:37 protection fee. Smalls refused.
57:39 Two weeks later, someone threw a Molotov
57:40 cocktail through the front window at
57:44 3:00 a.m. Luckily, the club was closed.
57:46 No one died. Smalls paid. He had no
57:49 choice. A,000 per month came out of his
57:52 profits. He'd been clearing 2,000 per
57:55 month. Now he was clearing one. And
57:57 that,000 going to Schultz, that was
57:59 $1,000 extracted from the black
58:01 community's only major blackowned
58:04 nightclub. By 1930, Smalls was
58:06 struggling. not failing but not
58:09 thriving. The overhead plus the
58:11 protection money was killing margins.
58:14 Smalls considered selling. He'd hold on
58:17 until 1938, but eventually he'd sell to
58:20 white owners and Smalls Paradise would
58:22 become just another mobcrolled
58:26 nightclub. Three models, three outcomes.
58:29 The Cotton Club, massive success,
58:32 cultural impact, complete exploitation,
58:34 made Ellington and Callaway famous while
58:37 dehumanizing them nightly. Generated
58:38 millions for the mob while paying
58:41 performers well by black standards
58:45 miserably by white standards. The Seavoi
58:48 integrated success profit sharing with
58:51 black managers but not black owners.
58:53 Proved integration was possible but
58:56 still ultimately white controlled.
58:58 Survived the longest, stayed open until
59:02 1958 but never became blackowned.
59:05 Smalls Paradise, black ownership,
59:09 community focus, artistic freedom. also
59:11 chronic financial pressure, mob
59:14 extortion, eventual forced sale to white
59:17 buyers. You had to choose financial
59:20 success with exploitation, integration
59:24 with white control, or independence with
59:26 vulnerability. There was no fourth
59:29 option, no path to black ownership,
59:31 artistic freedom, and financial
59:34 security. The system didn't allow it.
59:36 and the artists caught in the middle.
59:39 They navigated as best they could. Duke
59:41 Ellington played the Cotton Club, banked
59:43 his salary, and used the fame to launch
59:45 a touring career where he could play for
59:48 black audiences. Chick Webb made the
59:50 Seavoy his home, created the greatest
59:53 dance band in America and died at 34
59:55 from tuberculosis because he couldn't
59:57 afford proper medical care despite being
60:00 famous. And the musicians at Smalls Paradise, most of them never got
60:02 Paradise, most of them never got recorded, never got famous, played for
60:04 recorded, never got famous, played for their community, and died in obscurity.
60:07 their community, and died in obscurity. But there was one place where the
60:09 But there was one place where the artists, the gangsters, and the
60:11 artists, the gangsters, and the intellectuals all mixed on equal terms.
60:14 intellectuals all mixed on equal terms. One place where the contradictions of
60:15 One place where the contradictions of the Harlem Renaissance were on full
60:17 the Harlem Renaissance were on full display. One place where you might see
60:20 display. One place where you might see Langston Hughes arguing with Stephanie
60:22 Langston Hughes arguing with Stephanie Stlair while Casper Holstein paid for
60:24 Stlair while Casper Holstein paid for everyone's drinks. Ailia Walker's
60:27 everyone's drinks. Ailia Walker's Townhouse on 136th Street and the salon
60:31 Townhouse on 136th Street and the salon that would become the symbolic heart of
60:33 that would become the symbolic heart of the Renaissance even as it exposed all
60:35 the Renaissance even as it exposed all its moral compromises.
60:38 its moral compromises. Aia Walker wasn't a gangster. She wasn't
60:40 Aia Walker wasn't a gangster. She wasn't a musician. She wasn't a writer. She was
60:44 a musician. She wasn't a writer. She was an ays. And in the 1920s, she became the
60:47 an ays. And in the 1920s, she became the most important social connector in
60:49 most important social connector in Harlem. Her mother was Madame CJ Walker,
60:52 Harlem. Her mother was Madame CJ Walker, born Sarah Breedlove in Louisiana in
60:55 born Sarah Breedlove in Louisiana in 1867 to formerly enslaved parents.
60:58 1867 to formerly enslaved parents. Madame Walker invented a line of hair
61:00 Madame Walker invented a line of hair care products for black women, built a
61:03 care products for black women, built a cosmetics empire, and by 1919 was the
61:06 cosmetics empire, and by 1919 was the richest black woman in America, worth
61:09 richest black woman in America, worth over $2 million.
61:11 over $2 million. That's $ 35 million today. When Madam
61:14 That's $ 35 million today. When Madam Walker died in 1919, Ailia inherited
61:18 Walker died in 1919, Ailia inherited everything. the money, the properties,
61:21 everything. the money, the properties, the business. She was 34 years old, had
61:25 the business. She was 34 years old, had never worked a day in her life, and
61:27 never worked a day in her life, and suddenly had more money than 99% of
61:29 suddenly had more money than 99% of Americans would see in a lifetime. She
61:32 Americans would see in a lifetime. She could have done anything. She chose to
61:34 could have done anything. She chose to throw parties. In 1927, she opened the
61:37 throw parties. In 1927, she opened the Dark Tower, a literary salon in her
61:40 Dark Tower, a literary salon in her townhouse at 108 to 10 West 136th
61:45 townhouse at 108 to 10 West 136th Street. The building itself was
61:48 Street. The building itself was ostentatious.
61:49 ostentatious. Five stories, 14 rooms, marble floors,
61:53 Five stories, 14 rooms, marble floors, handcarved woodwork. The dark tower
61:55 handcarved woodwork. The dark tower occupied the ground floor and basement.
61:58 occupied the ground floor and basement. She'd had the walls painted in gold and
62:00 She'd had the walls painted in gold and silver, hung African masks and modern
62:02 silver, hung African masks and modern art, installed custom furniture, and
62:05 art, installed custom furniture, and every Saturday night she opened her
62:08 every Saturday night she opened her doors. Invitation only. If you were
62:10 doors. Invitation only. If you were someone in Harlem, an artist, a writer,
62:13 someone in Harlem, an artist, a writer, a musician, a patron, or yes, a gangster
62:16 a musician, a patron, or yes, a gangster with money, you got invited. Langston
62:19 with money, you got invited. Langston Hughes was a regular, Zoran Neil
62:21 Hughes was a regular, Zoran Neil Hursten, County Cullen, Claude McKay.
62:25 Hursten, County Cullen, Claude McKay. These were the literary lions of the
62:27 These were the literary lions of the Renaissance, but also attending, Casper
62:30 Renaissance, but also attending, Casper Holstein, Stephanie Stlair, numbers
62:33 Holstein, Stephanie Stlair, numbers bankers, policy operators, bootleggers,
62:36 bankers, policy operators, bootleggers, and white patrons. Carl Vanvetton, the
62:39 and white patrons. Carl Vanvetton, the white writer who made a career
62:40 white writer who made a career interpreting Harlem for white audiences.
62:43 interpreting Harlem for white audiences. Charlotte Osgood Mason, the elderly
62:45 Charlotte Osgood Mason, the elderly white patron who funded Langston Hughes,
62:48 white patron who funded Langston Hughes, and Zora Neil Hursten's work, but
62:50 and Zora Neil Hursten's work, but demanded they write about primitive
62:52 demanded they write about primitive black life. The Dark Tower was where all
62:54 black life. The Dark Tower was where all these contradictory forces met, where
62:57 these contradictory forces met, where high art and low crime drank the same
63:00 high art and low crime drank the same champagne. where black intellectuals
63:02 champagne. where black intellectuals debated the talented tenth philosophy
63:05 debated the talented tenth philosophy while the money funding those
63:06 while the money funding those intellectuals came from policy profits
63:08 intellectuals came from policy profits extracted from the working class. And
63:10 extracted from the working class. And Aelia Walker, she was the center of it
63:13 Aelia Walker, she was the center of it all. Not because she created anything,
63:15 all. Not because she created anything, but because she had money and space and
63:18 but because she had money and space and a genuine love of artists. She'd walk
63:20 a genuine love of artists. She'd walk around her salon, glass of champagne in
63:23 around her salon, glass of champagne in hand, introducing people. Langston, meet
63:26 hand, introducing people. Langston, meet Casper. Casper runs the numbers. He
63:29 Casper. Casper runs the numbers. He funded the opportunity award you won.
63:31 funded the opportunity award you won. Casper Langston's working on a novel
63:34 Casper Langston's working on a novel about workingclass black life. Maybe you
63:36 about workingclass black life. Maybe you know some stories he could use and
63:38 know some stories he could use and they'd talk. The poet and the gangster
63:42 they'd talk. The poet and the gangster and something would come of it. A story,
63:45 and something would come of it. A story, a poem, a perspective. The Dark Tower
63:48 a poem, a perspective. The Dark Tower facilitated thousands of these
63:50 facilitated thousands of these conversations. But it also exposed the
63:52 conversations. But it also exposed the moral contradictions nobody wanted to
63:54 moral contradictions nobody wanted to discuss. A typical Saturday night at the
63:57 discuss. A typical Saturday night at the Dark Tower. Langston Hughes is there
64:00 Dark Tower. Langston Hughes is there reciting a new poem, The Weary Blues.
64:03 reciting a new poem, The Weary Blues. It's about a piano player in a dingy
64:05 It's about a piano player in a dingy club pouring his soul into music while
64:08 club pouring his soul into music while the audience ignores him. The poem is
64:10 the audience ignores him. The poem is brilliant. Everyone applauds. Afterward,
64:14 brilliant. Everyone applauds. Afterward, Casper Holstein approaches Hughes. They
64:16 Casper Holstein approaches Hughes. They know each other. Holstein funded
64:18 know each other. Holstein funded Hughes's first published collection.
64:20 Hughes's first published collection. Holstein hands Hughes an envelope, $500.
64:24 Holstein hands Hughes an envelope, $500. for your next collection. Take your
64:26 for your next collection. Take your time. Write it right. Hughes takes the
64:29 time. Write it right. Hughes takes the money. He needs it. He's living on $3 a
64:32 money. He needs it. He's living on $3 a week. This 500 will let him write for 6
64:35 week. This 500 will let him write for 6 months without worrying about rent. But
64:38 months without worrying about rent. But as he pockets the envelope, he knows
64:40 as he pockets the envelope, he knows where the money came from. Some
64:42 where the money came from. Some grandmother in Harlem bet her last
64:44 grandmother in Harlem bet her last nickel this week, hoping for a miracle.
64:46 nickel this week, hoping for a miracle. She lost. Her nickel, along with
64:49 She lost. Her nickel, along with thousands of others, became Holstein's
64:51 thousands of others, became Holstein's profit. Holstein's profit became
64:53 profit. Holstein's profit became Hughes's grant. "Stephanie St. Clare is
64:56 Hughes's grant. "Stephanie St. Clare is watching this exchange." She walks over,
64:59 watching this exchange." She walks over, champagne glass in hand. "Don't be
65:01 champagne glass in hand. "Don't be ashamed, baby," she says to Hughes. "We
65:03 ashamed, baby," she says to Hughes. "We all take money from sinners. At least
65:05 all take money from sinners. At least we're black sinners. Better than taking
65:07 we're black sinners. Better than taking it from white patrons who want you to
65:09 it from white patrons who want you to write noble, savage stories." "She's
65:12 write noble, savage stories." "She's talking about Charlotte Osgood Mason,
65:14 talking about Charlotte Osgood Mason, who's standing 20 ft away." Mason funded
65:17 who's standing 20 ft away." Mason funded Zoran Neil Hursten's folklore research,
65:19 Zoran Neil Hursten's folklore research, but with conditions. Hurstston had to
65:22 but with conditions. Hurstston had to write about primitive black culture. Had
65:24 write about primitive black culture. Had to portray black people as closer to
65:26 to portray black people as closer to nature, less civilized. Mason called it
65:29 nature, less civilized. Mason called it authenticity. Hursten called it playing
65:32 authenticity. Hursten called it playing the game to get the check. Hughes laughs
65:35 the game to get the check. Hughes laughs at St. Clare's comment, but the scene
65:38 at St. Clare's comment, but the scene ends with him alone in a corner, looking
65:40 ends with him alone in a corner, looking at Holstein's envelope, wondering what
65:42 at Holstein's envelope, wondering what his art costs. This was the Dark Tower,
65:46 his art costs. This was the Dark Tower, a place where the contradictions were
65:48 a place where the contradictions were visible, acknowledged, and never
65:50 visible, acknowledged, and never resolved because they couldn't be
65:52 resolved because they couldn't be resolved. The Harlem Renaissance needed
65:55 resolved. The Harlem Renaissance needed funding. White patrons demanded
65:58 funding. White patrons demanded stereotypes. Black gangsters offered
66:00 stereotypes. Black gangsters offered money with no artistic strings attached,
66:03 money with no artistic strings attached, but that money came from exploiting the
66:05 but that money came from exploiting the black community. There was no clean
66:07 black community. There was no clean money anywhere.
66:10 money anywhere. Ailia Walker spent $10,000 on a single
66:13 Ailia Walker spent $10,000 on a single party in 1928.
66:16 party in 1928. That's 180,000 today. Imported
66:19 That's 180,000 today. Imported champagne, live orchestra, catered food
66:22 champagne, live orchestra, catered food from the best restaurants. And the next
66:25 from the best restaurants. And the next week, families three blocks away were
66:27 week, families three blocks away were skipping meals because rent was due.
66:29 skipping meals because rent was due. Langston Hughes wrote about this
66:31 Langston Hughes wrote about this contradiction constantly. In 1926, he
66:35 contradiction constantly. In 1926, he published an essay called The Negro
66:38 published an essay called The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain. The
66:40 Artist and the Racial Mountain. The thesis, Black Artists should create for
66:43 thesis, Black Artists should create for black audiences without regard for white
66:45 black audiences without regard for white approval. If white people are pleased,
66:48 approval. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't
66:51 we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. Beautiful sentiment. But Hughes
66:55 matter. Beautiful sentiment. But Hughes wrote that essay while living in a room
66:57 wrote that essay while living in a room paid for by Charlotte Osgood Mason, who
66:59 paid for by Charlotte Osgood Mason, who expected him to write about primitive
67:01 expected him to write about primitive black life. and he published it in The
67:04 black life. and he published it in The Nation, a white magazine read primarily
67:07 Nation, a white magazine read primarily by white audiences. The contradiction
67:09 by white audiences. The contradiction wasn't hypocrisy. It was survival.
67:12 wasn't hypocrisy. It was survival. Because in 1920s America, there was no
67:16 Because in 1920s America, there was no path to being a black artist that didn't
67:18 path to being a black artist that didn't involve compromise. You could compromise
67:20 involve compromise. You could compromise with white patrons who wanted
67:22 with white patrons who wanted stereotypes. You could compromise with
67:24 stereotypes. You could compromise with black gangsters whose money came from
67:26 black gangsters whose money came from exploiting the community, or you could
67:29 exploiting the community, or you could refuse to compromise and die in poverty.
67:32 refuse to compromise and die in poverty. Zoran Neil Hursten chose the white
67:34 Zoran Neil Hursten chose the white patron route. She took Mason's money,
67:37 patron route. She took Mason's money, wrote the folklore books Mason wanted,
67:39 wrote the folklore books Mason wanted, and used the platform to also write what
67:41 and used the platform to also write what she wanted. Novels like Their Eyes Were
67:44 she wanted. Novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God that were far more complex
67:46 Watching God that were far more complex than anything Mason would have approved.
67:48 than anything Mason would have approved. She played the game, took the money, and
67:50 She played the game, took the money, and did her real work on the side.
67:54 did her real work on the side. Duke Ellington chose the gangster route,
67:56 Duke Ellington chose the gangster route, played the Cotton Club, smiled for white
67:58 played the Cotton Club, smiled for white audiences, and used the fame and money
68:01 audiences, and used the fame and money to record his own compositions. The ones
68:03 to record his own compositions. The ones that weren't jungle music, the ones that
68:06 that weren't jungle music, the ones that were harmonically sophisticated and
68:08 were harmonically sophisticated and impossible to reduce to stereotypes.
68:10 impossible to reduce to stereotypes. Langston Hughes tried both routes
68:12 Langston Hughes tried both routes simultaneously, took money from white
68:15 simultaneously, took money from white patrons and black gangsters, wrote
68:17 patrons and black gangsters, wrote populist poetry for black audiences, and
68:20 populist poetry for black audiences, and also wrote essays for white magazines
68:22 also wrote essays for white magazines explaining black culture. He navigated,
68:25 explaining black culture. He navigated, compromised, code switched, and produced
68:28 compromised, code switched, and produced some of the greatest American poetry
68:30 some of the greatest American poetry ever written. Were they sellouts or
68:33 ever written. Were they sellouts or survivors? Both? Neither? The Dark Tower
68:37 survivors? Both? Neither? The Dark Tower never answered that question. It just
68:40 never answered that question. It just provided the space where everyone could
68:42 provided the space where everyone could see the machinery operating, where the
68:44 see the machinery operating, where the money, the art, and the exploitation
68:47 money, the art, and the exploitation were all visible at once. By 1930, the
68:51 were all visible at once. By 1930, the Dark Tower was still operating, but the
68:53 Dark Tower was still operating, but the Renaissance was showing cracks. The
68:56 Renaissance was showing cracks. The stock market had crashed in October
68:57 stock market had crashed in October 1929. The depression was beginning.
69:01 1929. The depression was beginning. Harlem's unemployment rate hit 50%.
69:03 Harlem's unemployment rate hit 50%. Policy gambling increased. Desperate
69:06 Policy gambling increased. Desperate people chasing miracles, which meant
69:08 people chasing miracles, which meant Holstein and St. Clare were making more
69:10 Holstein and St. Clare were making more money than ever from people who could
69:11 money than ever from people who could afford it least. And the mob was
69:14 afford it least. And the mob was watching.
69:16 watching. Dutch Schultz had spent the 1920s
69:18 Dutch Schultz had spent the 1920s consolidating power in the Bronx and
69:20 consolidating power in the Bronx and Manhattan. By 1930, he controlled most
69:23 Manhattan. By 1930, he controlled most of the bootleg liquor trade in New York.
69:26 of the bootleg liquor trade in New York. But prohibition was obviously ending.
69:28 But prohibition was obviously ending. Everyone knew it. Schultz needed a new
69:30 Everyone knew it. Schultz needed a new revenue stream. He looked at Harlem and
69:33 revenue stream. He looked at Harlem and saw $20 million per year in policy
69:35 saw $20 million per year in policy profits. Run by black operators who had
69:38 profits. Run by black operators who had no muscle, no political connections
69:40 no muscle, no political connections strong enough to fight him. It was there
69:43 strong enough to fight him. It was there for the taking. The golden age was about
69:45 for the taking. The golden age was about to end. Not gradually, violently. Dutch
69:49 to end. Not gradually, violently. Dutch Schultz, born Arthur Flegenheimer, 1901,
69:53 Schultz, born Arthur Flegenheimer, 1901, the Bronx. Jewish family, poverty.
69:57 the Bronx. Jewish family, poverty. Father abandoned them when Arthur was
69:59 Father abandoned them when Arthur was 14. He started as a street thug, worked
70:02 14. He started as a street thug, worked his way up to bootlegging, and by 1928
70:05 his way up to bootlegging, and by 1928 controlled beer distribution across the
70:07 controlled beer distribution across the Bronx and upper Manhattan. Schultz was a
70:10 Bronx and upper Manhattan. Schultz was a satist. His nickname among associates
70:12 satist. His nickname among associates was the Dutchman, but people who crossed
70:14 was the Dutchman, but people who crossed him called him the psychopath. He once
70:17 him called him the psychopath. He once beat a man to death with a baseball bat
70:19 beat a man to death with a baseball bat because the man had looked at him wrong
70:21 because the man had looked at him wrong in a bar. Another time, he hung a rival
70:23 in a bar. Another time, he hung a rival upside down from a meat hook and left
70:26 upside down from a meat hook and left him to die slowly. This wasn't strategy.
70:30 him to die slowly. This wasn't strategy. It was who he was. By 1930, Schultz was
70:34 It was who he was. By 1930, Schultz was making $2 million per year from
70:36 making $2 million per year from bootlegging. That's $37 million today.
70:39 bootlegging. That's $37 million today. He was rich, powerful, and paranoid.
70:42 He was rich, powerful, and paranoid. Prohibition was ending. Everyone could
70:45 Prohibition was ending. Everyone could see it coming. In 1932, the Democrats
70:48 see it coming. In 1932, the Democrats would nominate FDR, who ran on a repeal
70:51 would nominate FDR, who ran on a repeal platform. Schultz knew his bootleg
70:53 platform. Schultz knew his bootleg empire had maybe three years left. He
70:56 empire had maybe three years left. He needed to diversify. And his lieutenant,
70:58 needed to diversify. And his lieutenant, a man named Abe Landau, told him about
71:01 a man named Abe Landau, told him about Harlem's policy racket. 20 million per
71:04 Harlem's policy racket. 20 million per year, run by independent black
71:06 year, run by independent black operators, no mob affiliation, minimal
71:09 operators, no mob affiliation, minimal protection. Schultz sent men to observe.
71:12 protection. Schultz sent men to observe. They came back with numbers. Casper
71:14 They came back with numbers. Casper Holstein, 12 policy banks, 2 million per
71:18 Holstein, 12 policy banks, 2 million per year in revenue. Stephanie St. Clair, 10
71:21 year in revenue. Stephanie St. Clair, 10 banks, 1.5 million per year. two dozen
71:24 banks, 1.5 million per year. two dozen other smaller operators, another 5
71:26 other smaller operators, another 5 million combined. Schultz did the math.
71:29 million combined. Schultz did the math. If he took over the whole thing, he'd
71:32 If he took over the whole thing, he'd make 20 million per year, minus the
71:34 make 20 million per year, minus the expenses of running it, minus payouts,
71:36 expenses of running it, minus payouts, he'd clear maybe 8 million in profit,
71:39 he'd clear maybe 8 million in profit, four times what he made from
71:41 four times what he made from bootlegging. And unlike bootlegging,
71:43 bootlegging. And unlike bootlegging, policy gambling wasn't going to be
71:44 policy gambling wasn't going to be legalized. It would stay illegal
71:47 legalized. It would stay illegal forever, which meant permanent profit.
71:49 forever, which meant permanent profit. In March 1930, Schultz made his move.
71:53 In March 1930, Schultz made his move. But he didn't start with Holstein or St.
71:55 But he didn't start with Holstein or St. Clair. He started with the small
71:57 Clair. He started with the small operators, the ones who couldn't fight
71:59 operators, the ones who couldn't fight back. His men walked into a policy bank
72:02 back. His men walked into a policy bank on 145th Street. The operator was a man
72:06 on 145th Street. The operator was a man named Wilfred Brund, ran two banks, made
72:09 named Wilfred Brund, ran two banks, made about 50,000 per year. Schultz's men
72:12 about 50,000 per year. Schultz's men said, "You work for us now. We take 70%.
72:16 said, "You work for us now. We take 70%. You get 30%. You run the operation. We
72:19 You get 30%. You run the operation. We protect you. Brund said no. Two days
72:23 protect you. Brund said no. Two days later, someone threw a bomb through his
72:25 later, someone threw a bomb through his window. Brund wasn't home. His wife and
72:28 window. Brund wasn't home. His wife and daughter were. They survived, but
72:30 daughter were. They survived, but barely. Brund got the message. He signed
72:33 barely. Brund got the message. He signed the deal. Schultz repeated this pattern.
72:36 the deal. Schultz repeated this pattern. Bomb threats, beatings, murders. By the
72:40 Bomb threats, beatings, murders. By the end of 1930, he controlled 15 of the
72:42 end of 1930, he controlled 15 of the smaller policy operations. He was making
72:45 smaller policy operations. He was making about 3 million per year from them. but
72:48 about 3 million per year from them. but he wanted the big ones, Holstein and St.
72:51 he wanted the big ones, Holstein and St. Clair. In January 1931, Schultz sent men
72:55 Clair. In January 1931, Schultz sent men to meet with Casper Holstein. The
72:57 to meet with Casper Holstein. The meeting was in a restaurant on Lennox
72:59 meeting was in a restaurant on Lennox Avenue. Schultz's representative laid it
73:01 Avenue. Schultz's representative laid it out. You're taking in 60,000 per week.
73:04 out. You're taking in 60,000 per week. That's 3 million per year. We want 70%.
73:08 That's 3 million per year. We want 70%. You keep running it, we take most of the
73:10 You keep running it, we take most of the profit. In exchange, we protect you from
73:13 profit. In exchange, we protect you from other mobs. We pay the police and you
73:15 other mobs. We pay the police and you stay alive. Holstein said no. He'd built
73:19 stay alive. Holstein said no. He'd built this operation over 20 years. He wasn't
73:22 this operation over 20 years. He wasn't handing it over to a white gangster
73:23 handing it over to a white gangster who'd showed up yesterday. This is Black
73:26 who'd showed up yesterday. This is Black Harlem's money. Holstein said it stays
73:28 Harlem's money. Holstein said it stays in Black Harlem. The Schultz
73:30 in Black Harlem. The Schultz representative smiled. We'll see. One
73:34 representative smiled. We'll see. One week later, January 23rd, 1931, Casper
73:37 week later, January 23rd, 1931, Casper Holstein was kidnapped. He was walking
73:40 Holstein was kidnapped. He was walking home from a nightclub at 2:00 a.m. Three
73:42 home from a nightclub at 2:00 a.m. Three men grabbed him off the street, threw
73:44 men grabbed him off the street, threw him in a car, drove him to a warehouse
73:46 him in a car, drove him to a warehouse in the Bronx. They held him for 5 days,
73:49 in the Bronx. They held him for 5 days, demanded $50,000 ransom. Holstein's
73:52 demanded $50,000 ransom. Holstein's associates paid. Holstein came back
73:54 associates paid. Holstein came back alive, but traumatized. He was 53 years
73:57 alive, but traumatized. He was 53 years old, and for the first time in his life,
74:00 old, and for the first time in his life, he'd been powerless, held in a basement,
74:02 he'd been powerless, held in a basement, threatened with death. And he knew,
74:05 threatened with death. And he knew, everyone knew who was behind it.
74:08 everyone knew who was behind it. Schultz. The kidnapping was a message.
74:11 Schultz. The kidnapping was a message. We can take you anytime. Cooperate or
74:14 We can take you anytime. Cooperate or die. Holstein paid Schultz 30%. Not 70,
74:18 die. Holstein paid Schultz 30%. Not 70, but 30, a compromise. And with that
74:21 but 30, a compromise. And with that payment, the independent black policy
74:23 payment, the independent black policy racket began to die. But Stephanie
74:26 racket began to die. But Stephanie Stlair refused. Stephanie St. Clair,
74:30 Stlair refused. Stephanie St. Clair, Queenie, the only woman running a major
74:32 Queenie, the only woman running a major criminal operation in New York. We've
74:34 criminal operation in New York. We've mentioned her before, but now it's time
74:36 mentioned her before, but now it's time to understand who she actually was. Born
74:40 to understand who she actually was. Born in Martineique sometime around 1897,
74:44 in Martineique sometime around 1897, her mother was a domestic servant, her
74:46 her mother was a domestic servant, her father unknown. She grew up in extreme
74:49 father unknown. She grew up in extreme poverty, immigrated to the United States
74:51 poverty, immigrated to the United States in 1912, arrived in Harlem at age 15
74:55 in 1912, arrived in Harlem at age 15 with nothing. Worked as a domestic
74:57 with nothing. Worked as a domestic servant for white families in Brooklyn.
75:00 servant for white families in Brooklyn. By 1923, she was running her own policy
75:03 By 1923, she was running her own policy bank. How? Nobody knows exactly. She
75:07 bank. How? Nobody knows exactly. She never gave interviews about her origins.
75:09 never gave interviews about her origins. But by 1925, she had 10 banks. By 1930,
75:14 But by 1925, she had 10 banks. By 1930, 42. She was making 1.5 million per year,
75:18 42. She was making 1.5 million per year, had 300 employees, and ran the most
75:21 had 300 employees, and ran the most disciplined operation in Harlem. No
75:24 disciplined operation in Harlem. No corruption, no skimming. She paid
75:26 corruption, no skimming. She paid winners immediately, published results
75:28 winners immediately, published results in the newspaper, and had a reputation
75:30 in the newspaper, and had a reputation for absolute honesty. She also had a
75:34 for absolute honesty. She also had a reputation for violence. She carried a
75:36 reputation for violence. She carried a knife and a pistol. She'd been arrested
75:39 knife and a pistol. She'd been arrested multiple times for assault. She once
75:41 multiple times for assault. She once stabbed a man who tried to rob one of
75:43 stabbed a man who tried to rob one of her collectors. The man survived. She
75:46 her collectors. The man survived. She served 6 months at Bedford Hills prison,
75:49 served 6 months at Bedford Hills prison, came out, and went right back to work.
75:51 came out, and went right back to work. When Schultz sent men to her in 1931,
75:54 When Schultz sent men to her in 1931, she told them, "I don't pay white men
75:57 she told them, "I don't pay white men who think they can take what black
75:58 who think they can take what black people built. You want my operation?
76:01 people built. You want my operation? Come take it, but you'll bleed for it."
76:04 Come take it, but you'll bleed for it." Schultz took that as a challenge.
76:06 Schultz took that as a challenge. Between 1931 and 1933, Schultz waged war
76:10 Between 1931 and 1933, Schultz waged war on Stephanie St. Clair. He bombed her
76:12 on Stephanie St. Clair. He bombed her banks, eight different locations
76:15 banks, eight different locations destroyed. He murdered her collectors.
76:17 destroyed. He murdered her collectors. At least 12 men killed. He bribed the
76:20 At least 12 men killed. He bribed the police to raid her operations repeatedly
76:22 police to raid her operations repeatedly while leaving his own untouched. He
76:25 while leaving his own untouched. He offered her runners more money to switch
76:27 offered her runners more money to switch sides. St. Clare fought back. She hired
76:30 sides. St. Clare fought back. She hired muscle, including a young enforcer named
76:33 muscle, including a young enforcer named Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, just released
76:35 Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, just released from Sing Singh after serving 5 years
76:38 from Sing Singh after serving 5 years for armed robbery. Bumpy was 26, 6 feet
76:41 for armed robbery. Bumpy was 26, 6 feet tall, intelligent, and absolutely
76:45 tall, intelligent, and absolutely fearless. St. Clare paid him $200 per
76:48 fearless. St. Clare paid him $200 per week, more than he'd ever made legally,
76:50 week, more than he'd ever made legally, to protect her operations. And hit back
76:53 to protect her operations. And hit back at Schultz's men. And hit back he did.
76:56 at Schultz's men. And hit back he did. In 1932, three of Schultz's collectors
76:59 In 1932, three of Schultz's collectors were found beaten nearly to death in an
77:01 were found beaten nearly to death in an alley off 132nd Street. Everyone knew
77:04 alley off 132nd Street. Everyone knew Bumpy did it. Nobody could prove it. But
77:07 Bumpy did it. Nobody could prove it. But Schultz had the NYPD. And in October
77:10 Schultz had the NYPD. And in October 1933, the police raided St. Claire's
77:13 1933, the police raided St. Claire's home, found policy slips, arrested her
77:16 home, found policy slips, arrested her for operating an illegal gambling
77:18 for operating an illegal gambling operation. She was convicted and
77:20 operation. She was convicted and sentenced to 2 to 5 years at Bedford
77:23 sentenced to 2 to 5 years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She was 46
77:26 Hills Correctional Facility. She was 46 years old and Schultz thought he'd won.
77:29 years old and Schultz thought he'd won. He was wrong. From prison, St. Clare
77:32 He was wrong. From prison, St. Clare continued running her operation. She
77:34 continued running her operation. She smuggled instructions out through
77:36 smuggled instructions out through visitors, communicated through coded
77:38 visitors, communicated through coded letters, and kept her banks operating.
77:40 letters, and kept her banks operating. Bumpy Johnson ran day-to-day operations.
77:43 Bumpy Johnson ran day-to-day operations. The money kept flowing and St. Clare
77:46 The money kept flowing and St. Clare gave interviews from prison to the
77:48 gave interviews from prison to the Amsterdam News, Harlem's black
77:50 Amsterdam News, Harlem's black newspaper. She became a folk hero. Queen
77:53 newspaper. She became a folk hero. Queen of Harlem refuses to bow to white
77:56 of Harlem refuses to bow to white gangster. The articles portrayed her as
77:58 gangster. The articles portrayed her as a freedom fighter, a black woman
78:01 a freedom fighter, a black woman standing up to white oppression, which
78:03 standing up to white oppression, which was partially true. She was also a
78:05 was partially true. She was also a criminal extracting money from the
78:07 criminal extracting money from the poorest neighborhood in New York. Both
78:10 poorest neighborhood in New York. Both things were true. By 1935, Schultz
78:13 things were true. By 1935, Schultz controlled about 60% of Harlem's policy
78:16 controlled about 60% of Harlem's policy racket. He was making $12 million per
78:19 racket. He was making $12 million per year from it. But he'd made enemies. Not
78:22 year from it. But he'd made enemies. Not just St. Clair. The other mob bosses,
78:26 just St. Clair. The other mob bosses, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meer
78:29 Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meer Lansky, they were watching Schultz
78:31 Lansky, they were watching Schultz operate with increasing concern. He was
78:34 operate with increasing concern. He was violent, unpredictable, drew too much
78:37 violent, unpredictable, drew too much police attention, and he was making too
78:39 police attention, and he was making too much money without sharing. In 1935,
78:43 much money without sharing. In 1935, Schultz made a fatal mistake. Thomas
78:46 Schultz made a fatal mistake. Thomas Dwey, a federal prosecutor, was building
78:48 Dwey, a federal prosecutor, was building a case against organized crime in New
78:50 a case against organized crime in New York. Schultz was a primary target.
78:53 York. Schultz was a primary target. Schultz wanted to kill Dwey. He brought
78:55 Schultz wanted to kill Dwey. He brought the proposal to the commission, the
78:57 the proposal to the commission, the board of mob bosses that governed
78:59 board of mob bosses that governed organized crime. Let me kill the
79:01 organized crime. Let me kill the prosecutor, Schultz said. Problem
79:03 prosecutor, Schultz said. Problem solved. Lucky Luciano said, "No, you
79:07 solved. Lucky Luciano said, "No, you kill a federal prosecutor, the heat
79:09 kill a federal prosecutor, the heat comes down on all of us. You're not
79:11 comes down on all of us. You're not doing it." Schultz did it anyway. He
79:14 doing it." Schultz did it anyway. He sent men to surveil Dwiey's apartment,
79:16 sent men to surveil Dwiey's apartment, planned the assassination. Luciano found
79:19 planned the assassination. Luciano found out, and on October 23rd, 1935, two men
79:23 out, and on October 23rd, 1935, two men walked into the Palace Chop House in
79:25 walked into the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey, where Dutch Schultz
79:27 Newark, New Jersey, where Dutch Schultz was having dinner. They shot him and
79:29 was having dinner. They shot him and three of his associates. Schultz died 22
79:32 three of his associates. Schultz died 22 hours later in the hospital. His last
79:34 hours later in the hospital. His last words were delirious ramblings, fever
79:36 words were delirious ramblings, fever dreams, nothing coherent. When Stephanie
79:40 dreams, nothing coherent. When Stephanie St. Clare, still in prison, heard about
79:42 St. Clare, still in prison, heard about Schultz's death, she sent a telegram to
79:44 Schultz's death, she sent a telegram to the Amsterdam News. The telegram said,
79:47 the Amsterdam News. The telegram said, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." The war
79:50 "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." The war was over. Schultz was dead, but the
79:53 was over. Schultz was dead, but the independent black policy racket didn't
79:55 independent black policy racket didn't return because Lucky Luciano had other
79:59 return because Lucky Luciano had other plans. The golden age of the Harlem
80:01 plans. The golden age of the Harlem Renaissance. The era when black
80:03 Renaissance. The era when black operators controlled their own
80:05 operators controlled their own underground economy. When artists like
80:07 underground economy. When artists like Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington had
80:10 Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington had funding from black sources, when the
80:12 funding from black sources, when the Cotton Club and the Seavoy were at their
80:14 Cotton Club and the Seavoy were at their peak. That age ended in 1935.
80:17 peak. That age ended in 1935. What came next was compromise,
80:20 What came next was compromise, collaboration, and the slow realization
80:22 collaboration, and the slow realization that black Harlem would never be
80:24 that black Harlem would never be economically independent as long as
80:26 economically independent as long as white organized crime wanted a piece of
80:28 white organized crime wanted a piece of it.
80:30 it. October 29th, 1929,
80:33 October 29th, 1929, Black Tuesday, the stock market crashes,
80:36 Black Tuesday, the stock market crashes, $13 million in wealth evaporates in a
80:39 $13 million in wealth evaporates in a single day. That's 240 billion in
80:42 single day. That's 240 billion in today's money. Banks fail. Businesses
80:46 today's money. Banks fail. Businesses close. Unemployment skyrockets. The
80:49 close. Unemployment skyrockets. The Great Depression begins. Harlem was
80:51 Great Depression begins. Harlem was already poor. Now it became desperate.
80:54 already poor. Now it became desperate. By 1930, unemployment in Harlem hit 50%.
80:59 By 1930, unemployment in Harlem hit 50%. That's not a typo. Half of all adults in
81:01 That's not a typo. Half of all adults in Harlem had no job, no income, no
81:05 Harlem had no job, no income, no prospects. The factories that had hired
81:07 prospects. The factories that had hired black workers during World War I closed
81:10 black workers during World War I closed or laying off. Last hired, first fired
81:13 or laying off. Last hired, first fired was the rule. Black workers got
81:16 was the rule. Black workers got dismissed before white workers every
81:18 dismissed before white workers every single time. The average Harlem family
81:20 single time. The average Harlem family in 1930 was earning $8 per week. That's
81:24 in 1930 was earning $8 per week. That's $140 in today's money. Per week for a
81:29 $140 in today's money. Per week for a family of four or five. Rent alone was
81:32 family of four or five. Rent alone was $40 to $60 per month. Do the math. $8
81:36 $40 to $60 per month. Do the math. $8 per week is $32 per month. How do you
81:40 per week is $32 per month. How do you pay $60 rent on $32 income? You don't.
81:45 pay $60 rent on $32 income? You don't. Eviction rates in Harlem tripled between
81:47 Eviction rates in Harlem tripled between 1929 and 1932.
81:50 1929 and 1932. Families got thrown onto the street with
81:52 Families got thrown onto the street with their furniture. You'd walk down Lennox
81:54 their furniture. You'd walk down Lennox Avenue and see household belongings
81:56 Avenue and see household belongings piled on the sidewalk, beds, chairs,
82:00 piled on the sidewalk, beds, chairs, pots, a family sitting on their couch in
82:02 pots, a family sitting on their couch in the street because they had nowhere else
82:04 the street because they had nowhere else to go. The rent party circuit, which had
82:07 to go. The rent party circuit, which had been a cultural phenomenon in the 1920s,
82:09 been a cultural phenomenon in the 1920s, became pure survival in the 1930s.
82:12 became pure survival in the 1930s. Not let's throw a party and make some
82:15 Not let's throw a party and make some extra money. More like we eat this week
82:18 extra money. More like we eat this week or we don't. And the only way we eat is
82:20 or we don't. And the only way we eat is if 80 people show up on Saturday. And
82:23 if 80 people show up on Saturday. And here's what that did to the music. It
82:25 here's what that did to the music. It killed the joy. Listen to jazz
82:28 killed the joy. Listen to jazz recordings from 1925 versus 1933.
82:33 recordings from 1925 versus 1933. 1925,
82:34 1925, exuberant, experimental, playful.
82:39 exuberant, experimental, playful. 1933,
82:40 1933, still technically brilliant, but there's
82:42 still technically brilliant, but there's a darkness underneath because the
82:44 a darkness underneath because the musicians weren't playing for fun
82:46 musicians weren't playing for fun anymore. They were playing to survive.
82:48 anymore. They were playing to survive. And the audiences weren't dancing for
82:50 And the audiences weren't dancing for joy. They were dancing to forget. Fats
82:54 joy. They were dancing to forget. Fats Waller recorded I'm going to sit right
82:56 Waller recorded I'm going to sit right down and write myself a letter in 1935.
83:00 down and write myself a letter in 1935. It's a comedic song on the surface. He's
83:03 It's a comedic song on the surface. He's so lonely he's writing himself a love
83:05 so lonely he's writing himself a love letter. But listen to the piano playing
83:07 letter. But listen to the piano playing underneath the comedy. There's
83:09 underneath the comedy. There's desperation there. Waller was broke in
83:12 desperation there. Waller was broke in 1935,
83:13 1935, owed back taxes, dodging creditors. The
83:17 owed back taxes, dodging creditors. The song was recorded for money he needed
83:19 song was recorded for money he needed immediately. The comedy was survival.
83:23 immediately. The comedy was survival. Duke Ellington was more fortunate. The
83:25 Duke Ellington was more fortunate. The Cotton Club broadcasts had made him
83:27 Cotton Club broadcasts had made him nationally famous. He could tour, play
83:30 nationally famous. He could tour, play for white audiences across the country,
83:32 for white audiences across the country, command serious fees. But even Ellington
83:35 command serious fees. But even Ellington felt the pressure. In 1931, he wrote
83:38 felt the pressure. In 1931, he wrote Mood Indigo. It's one of the most
83:41 Mood Indigo. It's one of the most beautiful compositions in jazz history,
83:43 beautiful compositions in jazz history, and it's about poverty. The title is a
83:46 and it's about poverty. The title is a play on words. Mood indigo equals mood
83:49 play on words. Mood indigo equals mood indigo. The song is melancholic,
83:52 indigo. The song is melancholic, haunting, blue. That's depression Harlem
83:55 haunting, blue. That's depression Harlem in musical form. But while the musicians
83:58 in musical form. But while the musicians struggled, while families starved, while
84:00 struggled, while families starved, while unemployment devastated the community,
84:03 unemployment devastated the community, one industry was booming. Policy
84:06 one industry was booming. Policy gambling. The numbers racket exploded
84:08 gambling. The numbers racket exploded during the depression. Because when you
84:10 during the depression. Because when you have no hope, you buy hope. And policy
84:13 have no hope, you buy hope. And policy sold hope for a nickel. In 1929, before
84:17 sold hope for a nickel. In 1929, before the crash, Harlem's policy banks were
84:20 the crash, Harlem's policy banks were collecting about $60,000 per week
84:22 collecting about $60,000 per week collectively. By 1932,
84:25 collectively. By 1932, 200,000 per week, more than triple. The
84:29 200,000 per week, more than triple. The worse the economy got, the more people
84:31 worse the economy got, the more people gambled. And it made a sick kind of
84:34 gambled. And it made a sick kind of sense. You're a domestic worker. You
84:36 sense. You're a domestic worker. You make $3 per week. Your family needs $10
84:40 make $3 per week. Your family needs $10 for food and rent. You can work yourself
84:42 for food and rent. You can work yourself to death and still come up $7 short. Or
84:46 to death and still come up $7 short. Or you can bet a nickel and pray. If you
84:48 you can bet a nickel and pray. If you win, you get $3. That's your food
84:51 win, you get $3. That's your food budget. If you lose, you're only down a
84:54 budget. If you lose, you're only down a nickel. The math was brutal, but from
84:58 nickel. The math was brutal, but from the player's perspective, it was
84:59 the player's perspective, it was rational. You were broke either way. At
85:03 rational. You were broke either way. At least policy gave you a chance. Casper
85:06 least policy gave you a chance. Casper Holstein understood this, and it
85:08 Holstein understood this, and it tormented him. He was making more money
85:11 tormented him. He was making more money than ever. By 1932, his operation was
85:14 than ever. By 1932, his operation was pulling in $4 million per year. But he
85:17 pulling in $4 million per year. But he knew he was profiting from desperation.
85:20 knew he was profiting from desperation. He told a reporter in 1932, "I'm feeding
85:23 He told a reporter in 1932, "I'm feeding off starvation. People are betting money
85:25 off starvation. People are betting money they need for food, and I'm taking it. I
85:28 they need for food, and I'm taking it. I know I'm taking it. But if I shut down
85:31 know I'm taking it. But if I shut down tomorrow, someone else would take my
85:33 tomorrow, someone else would take my place. The game doesn't stop because I
85:36 place. The game doesn't stop because I have a conscience."
85:38 have a conscience." That's the central moral question of the
85:40 That's the central moral question of the depression era policy racket. Was
85:42 depression era policy racket. Was Holstein responsible for the harm he
85:44 Holstein responsible for the harm he caused? or was he just operating within
85:46 caused? or was he just operating within a system that was already designed to
85:48 a system that was already designed to exploit black people and at least he was
85:50 exploit black people and at least he was black. At least some of the money stayed
85:52 black. At least some of the money stayed in the community. There's no clean
85:54 in the community. There's no clean answer. Holstein did fund the arts. He
85:57 answer. Holstein did fund the arts. He did employ hundreds of people. He did
86:00 did employ hundreds of people. He did operate honestly. He always paid
86:02 operate honestly. He always paid winners, never rigged the game. But he
86:05 winners, never rigged the game. But he also extracted millions from the poorest
86:07 also extracted millions from the poorest community in New York and kept most of
86:09 community in New York and kept most of it. And then Dutch Schultz arrived and
86:12 it. And then Dutch Schultz arrived and made everything worse. Between 1930 and
86:15 made everything worse. Between 1930 and 1933, Schultz systematically took over
86:18 1933, Schultz systematically took over Harlem's policy racket. We covered some
86:21 Harlem's policy racket. We covered some of this already. The bombings, the
86:23 of this already. The bombings, the kidnapping of Holstein, the war with
86:25 kidnapping of Holstein, the war with Stephanie St. Clair. But let's talk
86:27 Stephanie St. Clair. But let's talk about what that war did to the culture.
86:30 about what that war did to the culture. The Renaissance was dying. Not because
86:33 The Renaissance was dying. Not because the artists stopped creating, but
86:35 the artists stopped creating, but because the ecosystem that sustained
86:37 because the ecosystem that sustained them collapsed. Holstein, after being
86:40 them collapsed. Holstein, after being kidnapped in 1931, was never the same.
86:43 kidnapped in 1931, was never the same. He paid Schultz 30% of his revenue, but
86:46 He paid Schultz 30% of his revenue, but the psychological damage was permanent.
86:49 the psychological damage was permanent. The man who'd been the Bledo king, who'd
86:52 The man who'd been the Bledo king, who'd walked through Harlem like royalty,
86:54 walked through Harlem like royalty, who'd funded Langston Hughes and Zor
86:56 who'd funded Langston Hughes and Zor Neil Hursten. He became paranoid,
86:58 Neil Hursten. He became paranoid, withdrawn, broken. By 1935, he'd sold
87:03 withdrawn, broken. By 1935, he'd sold most of his operations. By 1938, he was
87:06 most of his operations. By 1938, he was nearly broke. He died in 1944 in
87:10 nearly broke. He died in 1944 in poverty, forgotten. The money that had
87:13 poverty, forgotten. The money that had funded the Harlem Renaissance, the
87:15 funded the Harlem Renaissance, the literary prizes, the artist stipens, the
87:18 literary prizes, the artist stipens, the theater productions, that money dried
87:20 theater productions, that money dried up. Holene stopped giving. Other policy
87:24 up. Holene stopped giving. Other policy bankers were either taken over by
87:25 bankers were either taken over by Schultz or went out of business. The
87:28 Schultz or went out of business. The underground economy that had sustained
87:30 underground economy that had sustained black culture, Schultz extracted 70% of
87:33 black culture, Schultz extracted 70% of it and sent it downtown to white mob
87:35 it and sent it downtown to white mob bosses, and the artists, they scattered.
87:39 bosses, and the artists, they scattered. Langston Hughes moved to California in
87:41 Langston Hughes moved to California in 1934, tried to make it in Hollywood.
87:45 1934, tried to make it in Hollywood. Zoran Neil Hursten went back to Florida,
87:47 Zoran Neil Hursten went back to Florida, lived on the edge of poverty while
87:49 lived on the edge of poverty while writing Their Eyes Were Watching God.
87:52 writing Their Eyes Were Watching God. Duke Ellington was still famous, still
87:54 Duke Ellington was still famous, still touring, but he wasn't playing Harlem
87:57 touring, but he wasn't playing Harlem anymore. The Cotton Club had moved to
87:59 anymore. The Cotton Club had moved to Midtown in 1936, became a tourist trap
88:02 Midtown in 1936, became a tourist trap for white audiences. The music didn't
88:04 for white audiences. The music didn't stop, but the community that had created
88:07 stop, but the community that had created it was being destroyed. Meanwhile, the
88:10 it was being destroyed. Meanwhile, the violence was escalating. Between 1931
88:13 violence was escalating. Between 1931 and 1935, at least 40 people were
88:16 and 1935, at least 40 people were murdered in the Harlem Policy Wars.
88:18 murdered in the Harlem Policy Wars. Collectors shot on street corners.
88:20 Collectors shot on street corners. Runners who refused to switch sides
88:22 Runners who refused to switch sides found dead in alleys. One bombing in
88:26 found dead in alleys. One bombing in 1933 killed a family of four. Wrong
88:28 1933 killed a family of four. Wrong address. Schultz's men hit the wrong
88:31 address. Schultz's men hit the wrong building. The NYPD didn't investigate
88:34 building. The NYPD didn't investigate because the NYPD was on Schultz's
88:36 because the NYPD was on Schultz's payroll. He paid $20,000 per month to
88:39 payroll. He paid $20,000 per month to the police. That's $440,000 today, for
88:43 the police. That's $440,000 today, for non- enforcement. Every cop from beat
88:45 non- enforcement. Every cop from beat officers to precinct captains got a cut.
88:48 officers to precinct captains got a cut. In exchange, they raided blackowned
88:50 In exchange, they raided blackowned policy banks while leaving Schultz's
88:52 policy banks while leaving Schultz's operations alone. And the night life,
88:55 operations alone. And the night life, the clubs were still open, still packed,
88:57 the clubs were still open, still packed, but the atmosphere had changed. The
88:59 but the atmosphere had changed. The Cotton Club in 1933 wasn't the same as
89:02 Cotton Club in 1933 wasn't the same as the Cotton Club in 1928. The music was
89:05 the Cotton Club in 1928. The music was still good, but it was performed under
89:07 still good, but it was performed under the shadow of violence. Everyone knew
89:10 the shadow of violence. Everyone knew the mob ran everything now. Everyone
89:12 the mob ran everything now. Everyone knew Harlem wasn't independent anymore.
89:15 knew Harlem wasn't independent anymore. Smalls Paradise was barely hanging on.
89:17 Smalls Paradise was barely hanging on. Ed Smalls was paying Schultz $1,000 per
89:20 Ed Smalls was paying Schultz $1,000 per month, which ate up half his profit.
89:23 month, which ate up half his profit. He'd stopped innovating, stopped hiring
89:25 He'd stopped innovating, stopped hiring new talent. The club was surviving, not
89:28 new talent. The club was surviving, not thriving. The Seavoi was doing better
89:31 thriving. The Seavoi was doing better because it catered to dancers and people
89:33 because it catered to dancers and people still needed to dance, still needed some
89:35 still needed to dance, still needed some joy. Chicks orchestra was at its peak in
89:39 joy. Chicks orchestra was at its peak in the mid 1930s and the Lindy Hoppers were
89:42 the mid 1930s and the Lindy Hoppers were performing feats of athletic brilliance.
89:44 performing feats of athletic brilliance. But even the Seavoy was paying
89:46 But even the Seavoy was paying protection money, a thousand per month
89:48 protection money, a thousand per month to Schultz, same as everyone else. And
89:51 to Schultz, same as everyone else. And then there was Stephanie St. Clair in
89:53 then there was Stephanie St. Clair in prison, refusing to surrender.
89:57 prison, refusing to surrender. October 1933, Stephanie St. Clair is
90:00 October 1933, Stephanie St. Clair is convicted on charges of operating an
90:02 convicted on charges of operating an illegal gambling operation. The
90:04 illegal gambling operation. The evidence, policy slips found in her
90:06 evidence, policy slips found in her apartment during a police raid. The
90:08 apartment during a police raid. The sentence, 2 to 5 years at Bedford Hills
90:11 sentence, 2 to 5 years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women's prison
90:13 Correctional Facility, a women's prison 60 mi north of New York City. She's 46
90:17 60 mi north of New York City. She's 46 years old. Dutch Schultz thinks he's
90:19 years old. Dutch Schultz thinks he's won. But St. Clare doesn't fold. She
90:22 won. But St. Clare doesn't fold. She doesn't negotiate. From prison, she
90:24 doesn't negotiate. From prison, she continues running her operation. Here's
90:26 continues running her operation. Here's how it worked. Bumpy Johnson, her
90:29 how it worked. Bumpy Johnson, her enforcer, became the day-to-day
90:31 enforcer, became the day-to-day operator. He was 28 years old, recently
90:34 operator. He was 28 years old, recently released from Singh, and absolutely
90:36 released from Singh, and absolutely loyal to St. Clare. She paid him $300
90:40 loyal to St. Clare. She paid him $300 per week, that's 6,000 in today's money,
90:42 per week, that's 6,000 in today's money, to run her 10 remaining policy banks and
90:45 to run her 10 remaining policy banks and protect them from Schultz. St. Clare
90:48 protect them from Schultz. St. Clare communicated through coded letters.
90:50 communicated through coded letters. She'd write to Bumpy about recipes and
90:52 She'd write to Bumpy about recipes and fabric orders, but the numbers embedded
90:55 fabric orders, but the numbers embedded in the letters were instructions. Which
90:57 in the letters were instructions. Which banks to move, which collectors to
90:59 banks to move, which collectors to promote, which of Schultz's men to
91:01 promote, which of Schultz's men to target. The prison sensors never caught
91:04 target. The prison sensors never caught on. She also received visitors. Her
91:07 on. She also received visitors. Her lawyer came weekly carrying messages
91:09 lawyer came weekly carrying messages from Bumpy. Her friends brought in
91:12 from Bumpy. Her friends brought in newspapers so she could read about the
91:13 newspapers so she could read about the war she was fighting from inside. And
91:15 war she was fighting from inside. And she gave interviews. This is the part
91:18 she gave interviews. This is the part that made her legendary. In January
91:21 that made her legendary. In January 1934, the Amsterdam News, Harlem's black
91:25 1934, the Amsterdam News, Harlem's black newspaper, sent a reporter to interview
91:27 newspaper, sent a reporter to interview St. Clare at Bedford Hills. The warden
91:30 St. Clare at Bedford Hills. The warden allowed it, thinking it would be
91:31 allowed it, thinking it would be harmless. St. Clare used the opportunity
91:34 harmless. St. Clare used the opportunity to wage psychological warfare. The
91:36 to wage psychological warfare. The interview ran with the headline, "Queen
91:39 interview ran with the headline, "Queen of policy speaks from prison. I'd rather
91:42 of policy speaks from prison. I'd rather die standing than live on my knees." In
91:45 die standing than live on my knees." In the interview, St. Claire said, "Dutch
91:48 the interview, St. Claire said, "Dutch Schultz thinks he can take what black
91:49 Schultz thinks he can take what black people built. He thinks violence and
91:51 people built. He thinks violence and bombs will make us submit. He's wrong.
91:54 bombs will make us submit. He's wrong. I'm in prison. Yes, but my operation is
91:57 I'm in prison. Yes, but my operation is still running. My people are still
91:59 still running. My people are still working." And Schultz, he's made an
92:02 working." And Schultz, he's made an enemy he can't beat because I don't fear
92:05 enemy he can't beat because I don't fear death. I fear living as a slave. And I
92:08 death. I fear living as a slave. And I will never, never bow to a white
92:10 will never, never bow to a white gangster who thinks he can own Harlem.
92:14 gangster who thinks he can own Harlem. That interview electrified black Harlem.
92:17 That interview electrified black Harlem. Suddenly, St. Clare wasn't just a
92:18 Suddenly, St. Clare wasn't just a numbers banker. She was a symbol, a
92:22 numbers banker. She was a symbol, a black woman standing up to white
92:23 black woman standing up to white oppression, fighting from prison,
92:26 oppression, fighting from prison, refusing to surrender. The fact that she
92:29 refusing to surrender. The fact that she was a criminal, irrelevant in the
92:32 was a criminal, irrelevant in the context of 1934 Harlem, where black
92:35 context of 1934 Harlem, where black people had no political power, no
92:37 people had no political power, no economic power, no ability to fight back
92:40 economic power, no ability to fight back against systemic oppression. St.
92:42 against systemic oppression. St. Claire's defiance mattered more than her
92:44 Claire's defiance mattered more than her criminality. The Amsterdam News
92:47 criminality. The Amsterdam News published follow-up interviews. In one,
92:50 published follow-up interviews. In one, St. Clare talked about Schultz's
92:51 St. Clare talked about Schultz's bombings. He destroys property because
92:54 bombings. He destroys property because he can't destroy Will. He kills my
92:57 he can't destroy Will. He kills my collectors because he can't kill my
93:00 collectors because he can't kill my spirit. Every bomb he throws, every man
93:03 spirit. Every bomb he throws, every man he murders, he proves he's afraid.
93:06 he murders, he proves he's afraid. Afraid that a black woman has something
93:08 Afraid that a black woman has something he'll never have. the loyalty of her
93:11 he'll never have. the loyalty of her community. Was that true? Partially. St.
93:15 community. Was that true? Partially. St. Clare did have loyalty. Her runners
93:17 Clare did have loyalty. Her runners stayed with her even when Schultz
93:19 stayed with her even when Schultz offered more money. But it was
93:21 offered more money. But it was complicated loyalty. They were loyal
93:23 complicated loyalty. They were loyal because she paid fairly, because she
93:26 because she paid fairly, because she protected them, because she was black,
93:28 protected them, because she was black, and Schultz was white, but also because
93:31 and Schultz was white, but also because they had no better options. This was the
93:34 they had no better options. This was the only economy that would hire them.
93:37 only economy that would hire them. Langston Hughes was paying attention. In
93:40 Langston Hughes was paying attention. In 1934, he wrote a poem called Ballad of
93:43 1934, he wrote a poem called Ballad of the Landlord. It wasn't directly about
93:46 the Landlord. It wasn't directly about St. Clare, but it was inspired by her.
93:49 St. Clare, but it was inspired by her. The poem is about a black tenant who
93:51 The poem is about a black tenant who refuses to pay rent because the landlord
93:53 refuses to pay rent because the landlord won't fix the building. The tenant
93:55 won't fix the building. The tenant threatens the landlord. The landlord
93:58 threatens the landlord. The landlord calls the police. The tenant gets
94:00 calls the police. The tenant gets arrested and branded a criminal for
94:02 arrested and branded a criminal for demanding basic dignity. The poem ends,
94:05 demanding basic dignity. The poem ends, "Police, police, come and get this man.
94:09 "Police, police, come and get this man. He's trying to ruin the government and
94:11 He's trying to ruin the government and overturn the land." That's St. Cla's
94:14 overturn the land." That's St. Cla's story. She's running an illegal
94:17 story. She's running an illegal business. Yes. But she's also refusing
94:19 business. Yes. But she's also refusing to let white gangsters colonize Harlem's
94:21 to let white gangsters colonize Harlem's economy. And the system, the police, the
94:24 economy. And the system, the police, the courts, the prison brands her a criminal
94:27 courts, the prison brands her a criminal for resisting. Hughes never published
94:29 for resisting. Hughes never published that poem in a mainstream magazine. He
94:32 that poem in a mainstream magazine. He knew white editors wouldn't understand
94:34 knew white editors wouldn't understand it, but he read it at the Dark Tower in
94:36 it, but he read it at the Dark Tower in 1935, and everyone there understood
94:39 1935, and everyone there understood exactly what he meant. Meanwhile, in
94:42 exactly what he meant. Meanwhile, in prison, St. Clair was building
94:43 prison, St. Clair was building alliances. Bedford Hills had a
94:46 alliances. Bedford Hills had a significant black population, women
94:48 significant black population, women imprisoned for theft, prostitution,
94:51 imprisoned for theft, prostitution, numbers running, all crimes of poverty.
94:54 numbers running, all crimes of poverty. St. Clare became a leader inside. She
94:57 St. Clare became a leader inside. She organized the women, negotiated with
94:59 organized the women, negotiated with guards for better treatment, and ran an
95:01 guards for better treatment, and ran an underground economy inside the prison.
95:04 underground economy inside the prison. Cigarettes, contraband, favors. She was
95:08 Cigarettes, contraband, favors. She was doing inside what she'd done outside,
95:10 doing inside what she'd done outside, building an organization through
95:11 building an organization through intelligence and force of will. The
95:14 intelligence and force of will. The warden hated her, but he couldn't break
95:16 warden hated her, but he couldn't break her. St. Claire served 3 years, was
95:19 her. St. Claire served 3 years, was released in October 1936, and walked out
95:22 released in October 1936, and walked out of Bedford Hills to a crowd of 200
95:24 of Bedford Hills to a crowd of 200 Harlem residents waiting for her. They
95:27 Harlem residents waiting for her. They treated her like a returning hero, but
95:29 treated her like a returning hero, but the world she returned to was different.
95:32 the world she returned to was different. Dutch Schultz was dead, murdered in
95:34 Dutch Schultz was dead, murdered in October 1935 by Lucky Luciano's order.
95:38 October 1935 by Lucky Luciano's order. The policy war was over, and Luchiano
95:41 The policy war was over, and Luchiano had offered Bumpy Johnson a deal. St.
95:44 had offered Bumpy Johnson a deal. St. Clare came home expecting to reclaim her
95:46 Clare came home expecting to reclaim her empire. Instead, she found that Bumpy
95:49 empire. Instead, she found that Bumpy had made a compromise. To understand how
95:52 had made a compromise. To understand how the Harlem policy racket became
95:53 the Harlem policy racket became entrenched, how it survived police raids
95:56 entrenched, how it survived police raids and federal investigations, how it
95:58 and federal investigations, how it operated openly for decades, you have to
96:01 operated openly for decades, you have to understand the political machine. And
96:03 understand the political machine. And that machine had a name, Jimmy Hines.
96:07 that machine had a name, Jimmy Hines. James J. Hines, born 1877, grew up in
96:11 James J. Hines, born 1877, grew up in the Tenderloin district of Manhattan.
96:13 the Tenderloin district of Manhattan. started as a saloon worker became a
96:16 started as a saloon worker became a Tamonn Hall district leader by 1912.
96:18 Tamonn Hall district leader by 1912. Tamony Hall was the Democratic political
96:21 Tamony Hall was the Democratic political machine that controlled New York City
96:22 machine that controlled New York City politics from the 1850s through the
96:25 politics from the 1850s through the 1930s. If you wanted anything in New
96:27 1930s. If you wanted anything in New York, a job, a liquor license, a
96:30 York, a job, a liquor license, a building permit, protection from police,
96:33 building permit, protection from police, you went through Tamony. By 1930, Jimmy
96:37 you went through Tamony. By 1930, Jimmy Hines controlled the 11th Assembly
96:39 Hines controlled the 11th Assembly District, which included Harlem and
96:41 District, which included Harlem and parts of Midtown. And Hines understood
96:44 parts of Midtown. And Hines understood something crucial. Harlem had votes.
96:47 something crucial. Harlem had votes. Black voters had been migrating from the
96:49 Black voters had been migrating from the Republican party, the party of Lincoln,
96:51 Republican party, the party of Lincoln, to the Democratic Party since the 1920s.
96:53 to the Democratic Party since the 1920s. By 1930, Harlem was delivering 60,000
96:56 By 1930, Harlem was delivering 60,000 votes per election. That was power. Tam
97:00 votes per election. That was power. Tam wanted those votes. Hines made a deal.
97:03 wanted those votes. Hines made a deal. He appointed a black man, Ferdinand Q.
97:06 He appointed a black man, Ferdinand Q. Morton as the black commissioner of New
97:08 Morton as the black commissioner of New York City, a largely ceremonial position
97:11 York City, a largely ceremonial position with no real authority but significant
97:13 with no real authority but significant symbolic value. Morton's job was to
97:16 symbolic value. Morton's job was to deliver Harlem's votes to Tam. In
97:19 deliver Harlem's votes to Tam. In exchange, Tam would provide jobs,
97:21 exchange, Tam would provide jobs, sanitation workers, building inspectors,
97:24 sanitation workers, building inspectors, low-level city employees. These jobs
97:27 low-level city employees. These jobs paid $30 to $40 per week, which in
97:30 paid $30 to $40 per week, which in depression era Harlem was a fortune.
97:32 depression era Harlem was a fortune. Morton delivered. In the 1932 election,
97:36 Morton delivered. In the 1932 election, Harlem voted 80% Democratic. FDR carried
97:39 Harlem voted 80% Democratic. FDR carried New York in large part because of
97:41 New York in large part because of Harlem's turnout, and Hines rewarded
97:43 Harlem's turnout, and Hines rewarded Morton with more jobs, more patronage,
97:46 Morton with more jobs, more patronage, more power. But there was another part
97:48 more power. But there was another part of the deal that nobody talked about
97:50 of the deal that nobody talked about publicly. Hines protected the policy
97:53 publicly. Hines protected the policy racket. Not the black operators. He let
97:56 racket. Not the black operators. He let them get raided occasionally for show,
97:58 them get raided occasionally for show, but the big operations, the ones paying
98:01 but the big operations, the ones paying him, untouchable. and Dutch Schultz was
98:04 him, untouchable. and Dutch Schultz was paying him enormous amounts. Starting in
98:07 paying him enormous amounts. Starting in 1931, when Schultz took over much of
98:09 1931, when Schultz took over much of Harlem's policy racket, he paid Hines
98:12 Harlem's policy racket, he paid Hines 10% of his policy profits as protection
98:14 10% of his policy profits as protection money. By 1933, that was $500,000 per
98:19 money. By 1933, that was $500,000 per year. That's 11 million today. Hines
98:23 year. That's 11 million today. Hines took that money and distributed it to
98:25 took that money and distributed it to judges who dismissed cases, to police
98:27 judges who dismissed cases, to police captains who ignored violations, to
98:29 captains who ignored violations, to prosecutors who declined to indict. The
98:32 prosecutors who declined to indict. The system worked like this. Schultz's
98:35 system worked like this. Schultz's policy banks operated openly. Runners
98:38 policy banks operated openly. Runners collected bets on street corners in
98:40 collected bets on street corners in broad daylight. If anyone complained,
98:43 broad daylight. If anyone complained, the local precinct would say, "We don't
98:45 the local precinct would say, "We don't have the resources to investigate." If
98:47 have the resources to investigate." If someone got arrested anyway, the charges
98:49 someone got arrested anyway, the charges would be dropped. If charges somehow
98:51 would be dropped. If charges somehow stuck, the sentence would be suspended.
98:54 stuck, the sentence would be suspended. The fix was in at every level.
98:56 The fix was in at every level. Meanwhile, blackowned policy banks that
98:59 Meanwhile, blackowned policy banks that didn't pay Schultz got raided
99:01 didn't pay Schultz got raided constantly. Stephanie St. Clair got
99:03 constantly. Stephanie St. Clair got raided 12 times between 1931 and 1933
99:09 raided 12 times between 1931 and 1933 before finally being convicted. Casper
99:12 before finally being convicted. Casper Holstein got raided eight times in 1932
99:15 Holstein got raided eight times in 1932 alone. The message was clear. pay
99:18 alone. The message was clear. pay Schultz or go to prison. And Ferdinand
99:21 Schultz or go to prison. And Ferdinand Q. Morton, he knew exactly what was
99:23 Q. Morton, he knew exactly what was happening. He knew Tamony was protecting
99:26 happening. He knew Tamony was protecting white gangsters while prosecuting black
99:28 white gangsters while prosecuting black operators. He knew the system was
99:30 operators. He knew the system was designed to extract wealth from Harlem
99:32 designed to extract wealth from Harlem and funnel it to downtown bosses. But he
99:35 and funnel it to downtown bosses. But he justified it this way. Better to have
99:38 justified it this way. Better to have some power than no power. Better to get
99:40 some power than no power. Better to get city jobs for a thousand black men than
99:43 city jobs for a thousand black men than to have those jobs go to white men.
99:46 to have those jobs go to white men. Better to work within the system than to
99:48 Better to work within the system than to be destroyed by it. Was he right? That's
99:51 be destroyed by it. Was he right? That's the impossible question. Morton did get
99:54 the impossible question. Morton did get jobs for thousands of black Harlemmites.
99:56 jobs for thousands of black Harlemmites. Real jobs with steady pay that fed
99:58 Real jobs with steady pay that fed families during the depression. But he
100:00 families during the depression. But he also enabled a system that extracted
100:03 also enabled a system that extracted millions from the black community and
100:05 millions from the black community and sent it to white gangsters and
100:06 sent it to white gangsters and politicians. Langston Hughes wrote about
100:09 politicians. Langston Hughes wrote about this contradiction.
100:11 this contradiction. In 1935, he published a poem called Let
100:15 In 1935, he published a poem called Let America Be America Again. The most
100:18 America Be America Again. The most famous line, "America never was America
100:22 famous line, "America never was America to me." The poem is about the gap
100:25 to me." The poem is about the gap between American ideals and American
100:26 between American ideals and American reality. About how democracy is supposed
100:29 reality. About how democracy is supposed to work versus how it actually works,
100:32 to work versus how it actually works, about how black people are told to
100:34 about how black people are told to participate in the system while the
100:36 participate in the system while the system is designed to exploit them.
100:39 system is designed to exploit them. Hughes was thinking about Ferdinand Q.
100:41 Hughes was thinking about Ferdinand Q. Morton when he wrote that Morton was
100:44 Morton when he wrote that Morton was participating in democracy. He was a
100:46 participating in democracy. He was a government official delivering votes,
100:48 government official delivering votes, working within the system, and the
100:51 working within the system, and the system was using him to legitimize the
100:53 system was using him to legitimize the theft of Harlem's wealth. But here's the
100:55 theft of Harlem's wealth. But here's the most damning part. The policy money
100:58 most damning part. The policy money funded Harlem's culture while
101:00 funded Harlem's culture while simultaneously destroying it. Let's
101:03 simultaneously destroying it. Let's trace the money. A domestic worker bets
101:06 trace the money. A domestic worker bets a nickel on policy. She loses. That
101:09 a nickel on policy. She loses. That nickel goes to a policy bank. The bank
101:12 nickel goes to a policy bank. The bank is owned by Schultz. Schultz takes 70%
101:15 is owned by Schultz. Schultz takes 70% which goes to him and his mob
101:17 which goes to him and his mob associates. He takes 10% of that and
101:19 associates. He takes 10% of that and pays Hines. Hines distributes that money
101:22 pays Hines. Hines distributes that money to judges and cops. The remaining 30%
101:25 to judges and cops. The remaining 30% stays with the local operators. Bumpy
101:27 stays with the local operators. Bumpy Johnson and other black gangsters
101:29 Johnson and other black gangsters working for Schultz. Some of that 30%
101:31 working for Schultz. Some of that 30% gets reinvested in Harlem. Bumpy Johnson
101:34 gets reinvested in Harlem. Bumpy Johnson in the mid 1930s is making $500 per week
101:38 in the mid 1930s is making $500 per week working as Schultz's enforcer and
101:40 working as Schultz's enforcer and operator. That's 10,000 today. He spends
101:43 operator. That's 10,000 today. He spends that money in Harlem, rents apartments,
101:46 that money in Harlem, rents apartments, eats at blackowned restaurants, buys
101:48 eats at blackowned restaurants, buys clothes from black tailor. That money
101:51 clothes from black tailor. That money circulates, but 70% leaves the
101:54 circulates, but 70% leaves the neighborhood forever. $500,000 per year
101:57 neighborhood forever. $500,000 per year extracted from Harlem, sent to white
102:00 extracted from Harlem, sent to white gangsters and politicians. That's money
102:02 gangsters and politicians. That's money that could have built businesses, funded
102:05 that could have built businesses, funded schools, created generational wealth.
102:08 schools, created generational wealth. Instead, it's gone and the culture. By
102:12 Instead, it's gone and the culture. By 1935, the Harlem Renaissance was
102:14 1935, the Harlem Renaissance was functionally over. Not because people
102:17 functionally over. Not because people stopped creating, but because the
102:19 stopped creating, but because the funding structure collapsed. The
102:21 funding structure collapsed. The nightclubs were still open, but they
102:22 nightclubs were still open, but they were mob controlled. The artists were
102:25 were mob controlled. The artists were still working, but they were broke or
102:27 still working, but they were broke or scattered. The literary magazines had
102:29 scattered. The literary magazines had folded. The theater companies had
102:31 folded. The theater companies had closed. Aia Walker died in 1931 and the
102:35 closed. Aia Walker died in 1931 and the Dark Tower closed with her. Casper
102:38 Dark Tower closed with her. Casper Holstein stopped funding artists after
102:40 Holstein stopped funding artists after his kidnapping. The Rent party circuit
102:43 his kidnapping. The Rent party circuit still existed, but it was survival, not
102:46 still existed, but it was survival, not culture. The Cotton Club moved downtown
102:49 culture. The Cotton Club moved downtown in 1936 and became a different kind of
102:51 in 1936 and became a different kind of place, a tourist destination where white
102:54 place, a tourist destination where white audiences consumed watered down Harlem
102:57 audiences consumed watered down Harlem style without any actual Harlem.
103:00 style without any actual Harlem. The machine had won. Tam Hall controlled
103:03 The machine had won. Tam Hall controlled Harlem's politics. The mob controlled
103:06 Harlem's politics. The mob controlled Harlem's economy. And black Harlem,
103:09 Harlem's economy. And black Harlem, black Harlem had jobs, had survival, had
103:12 black Harlem had jobs, had survival, had some semblance of stability. But
103:14 some semblance of stability. But independence, ownership,
103:16 independence, ownership, self-determination,
103:18 self-determination, those were gone. And then in October
103:21 those were gone. And then in October 1935, Dutch Schultz made a catastrophic
103:24 1935, Dutch Schultz made a catastrophic mistake. October 1935,
103:28 mistake. October 1935, Dutch Schultz was making $12 million per
103:30 Dutch Schultz was making $12 million per year from Harlem's policy racket. He was
103:33 year from Harlem's policy racket. He was the richest gangster in New York. He was
103:36 the richest gangster in New York. He was also the most hated. The other mob
103:38 also the most hated. The other mob bosses, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello,
103:42 bosses, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meer Lansky, Bugsy Seagull. They'd
103:45 Meer Lansky, Bugsy Seagull. They'd formed what they called the Commission
103:46 formed what they called the Commission in 1931. The idea was simple. Organize
103:50 in 1931. The idea was simple. Organize crime like a business. Stop the wars.
103:53 crime like a business. Stop the wars. divide territories, cooperate for mutual
103:56 divide territories, cooperate for mutual profit. It worked. The commission made
103:59 profit. It worked. The commission made everyone richer and safer. Except
104:02 everyone richer and safer. Except Schultz didn't follow the rules. He was
104:04 Schultz didn't follow the rules. He was violent, unpredictable, paranoid. He
104:08 violent, unpredictable, paranoid. He killed people for personal slights. He
104:10 killed people for personal slights. He attracted police attention, and he
104:12 attracted police attention, and he refused to share Harlem's policy profits
104:14 refused to share Harlem's policy profits with the other bosses, claiming he'd
104:16 with the other bosses, claiming he'd earned it through conquest.
104:18 earned it through conquest. By 1935, Schultz had another problem.
104:22 By 1935, Schultz had another problem. Thomas Dwey. Dwey was the federal
104:24 Thomas Dwey. Dwey was the federal prosecutor for the Southern District of
104:26 prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, and he'd made his name
104:28 New York, and he'd made his name prosecuting organized crime. He'd
104:30 prosecuting organized crime. He'd already gotten convictions on Waxy
104:32 already gotten convictions on Waxy Gordon, Lucky Luciano's rival. Now, he
104:35 Gordon, Lucky Luciano's rival. Now, he was building a case against Schultz.
104:38 was building a case against Schultz. Dwey was relentless. He subpoenaed
104:40 Dwey was relentless. He subpoenaed witnesses, offered immunity deals,
104:42 witnesses, offered immunity deals, traced money through shell companies,
104:44 traced money through shell companies, and he was making progress. Schultz was
104:47 and he was making progress. Schultz was going to be indicted on tax evasion
104:49 going to be indicted on tax evasion charges, the same charges that got Al
104:52 charges, the same charges that got Al Capone. If convicted, Schultz would die
104:55 Capone. If convicted, Schultz would die in prison. Schultz had a solution. Kill
104:58 in prison. Schultz had a solution. Kill Thomas Dwey. Kill the prosecutor.
105:00 Thomas Dwey. Kill the prosecutor. Problem solved. He brought the idea to
105:03 Problem solved. He brought the idea to the commission. In September 1935, he
105:06 the commission. In September 1935, he called a meeting with Luchiano,
105:08 called a meeting with Luchiano, Costello, and Lansky.
105:11 Costello, and Lansky. We killed Dwey, Schultz said. I've
105:13 We killed Dwey, Schultz said. I've already got men watching him. We hit him
105:16 already got men watching him. We hit him on his way to work. Make it look like a
105:18 on his way to work. Make it look like a robbery. The case dies with him. Lucky
105:20 robbery. The case dies with him. Lucky Luchiano said, "No, you kill a federal
105:23 Luchiano said, "No, you kill a federal prosecutor, the heat comes down on all
105:25 prosecutor, the heat comes down on all of us. The FBI, the Treasury Department,
105:29 of us. The FBI, the Treasury Department, the Army, if they have to. They'll
105:31 the Army, if they have to. They'll destroy organized crime in New York to
105:33 destroy organized crime in New York to avenge him. We don't kill prosecutors.
105:35 avenge him. We don't kill prosecutors. We don't kill judges. We don't kill
105:37 We don't kill judges. We don't kill cops. Those are the rules," Schultz
105:40 cops. Those are the rules," Schultz argued. Got angry. Said he was doing it
105:42 argued. Got angry. Said he was doing it anyway, with or without permission. The
105:45 anyway, with or without permission. The commission voted 4 to1. Dutch Schultz
105:48 commission voted 4 to1. Dutch Schultz had to die. On October 23rd, 1935,
105:53 had to die. On October 23rd, 1935, Schultz was eating dinner at the Palace
105:55 Schultz was eating dinner at the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. He was
105:58 Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. He was with three associates. Abe Landau, his
106:00 with three associates. Abe Landau, his chief enforcer, Otto Berman, his
106:03 chief enforcer, Otto Berman, his accountant, and Lulu Rosenrants, his
106:05 accountant, and Lulu Rosenrants, his bodyguard. They were sitting at a round
106:08 bodyguard. They were sitting at a round table in the back discussing business.
106:10 table in the back discussing business. At 10:15 p.m., two men walked in.
106:13 At 10:15 p.m., two men walked in. Charlie the Bug Workman and Mendy Weiss
106:17 Charlie the Bug Workman and Mendy Weiss hitmen sent by the commission. They
106:19 hitmen sent by the commission. They walked straight to Schultz's table and
106:21 walked straight to Schultz's table and opened fire. 20 shots in under 10
106:24 opened fire. 20 shots in under 10 seconds. All four men hit. Schultz
106:27 seconds. All four men hit. Schultz wasn't killed instantly. The bullet hit
106:29 wasn't killed instantly. The bullet hit him in the stomach. He stumbled to the
106:31 him in the stomach. He stumbled to the bathroom, collapsed. An ambulance took
106:34 bathroom, collapsed. An ambulance took him to New York City Hospital. He was
106:36 him to New York City Hospital. He was conscious, delirious, in shock. The
106:40 conscious, delirious, in shock. The doctors couldn't save him. He died 22
106:43 doctors couldn't save him. He died 22 hours later on October 24th at 8:35 p.m.
106:47 hours later on October 24th at 8:35 p.m. His last words were recorded by a police
106:49 His last words were recorded by a police stenographer. They're mostly incoherent.
106:53 stenographer. They're mostly incoherent. A boy has never wept nor dashed a
106:55 A boy has never wept nor dashed a thousand Kim. Oh. Oh. Dog biscuits. And
106:59 thousand Kim. Oh. Oh. Dog biscuits. And when he is happy, he doesn't get snappy.
107:01 when he is happy, he doesn't get snappy. Fever dreams. Morphine hallucinations.
107:04 Fever dreams. Morphine hallucinations. Nothing useful. When Stephanie St. Clare
107:07 Nothing useful. When Stephanie St. Clare still in Bedford Hills prison heard the
107:09 still in Bedford Hills prison heard the news. She sent that famous telegram to
107:12 news. She sent that famous telegram to the Amsterdam news. As ye sow, so so
107:16 the Amsterdam news. As ye sow, so so shall you reap. Schultz was dead. The
107:19 shall you reap. Schultz was dead. The policy war was over. And lucky Luchiano
107:22 policy war was over. And lucky Luchiano inherited Harlem. Luchiano was different
107:25 inherited Harlem. Luchiano was different from Schultz. Smarter, smoother, more
107:28 from Schultz. Smarter, smoother, more strategic. He didn't wage war. He made
107:31 strategic. He didn't wage war. He made deals. And in January 1936, he called a
107:35 deals. And in January 1936, he called a meeting with Bumpy Johnson. Bumpy was 29
107:39 meeting with Bumpy Johnson. Bumpy was 29 years old, running Stephanie St. Clair's
107:41 years old, running Stephanie St. Clair's operation while she was in prison. He'd
107:44 operation while she was in prison. He'd been expecting this meeting, expecting
107:46 been expecting this meeting, expecting Luchiano to either make an offer or kill
107:48 Luchiano to either make an offer or kill him. Luchiano made an offer. "You run
107:52 him. Luchiano made an offer. "You run the policy racket in Harlem," Luchiano
107:54 the policy racket in Harlem," Luchiano said. "You know the neighborhood. You
107:56 said. "You know the neighborhood. You know the operators. You speak the
107:58 know the operators. You speak the language. I don't want to occupy Harlem.
108:01 language. I don't want to occupy Harlem. I want to profit from Harlem. So, here's
108:04 I want to profit from Harlem. So, here's the deal. You run everything. I take
108:07 the deal. You run everything. I take 40%. You keep 60. You handle day-to-day
108:10 40%. You keep 60. You handle day-to-day operations. I provide protection,
108:12 operations. I provide protection, police, politicians, muscle if you need
108:15 police, politicians, muscle if you need it. You're not working for me. You're
108:18 it. You're not working for me. You're working with me. Bumpy thought about it.
108:21 working with me. Bumpy thought about it. He could say no and Luchiano would kill
108:23 He could say no and Luchiano would kill him and install someone else. He could
108:26 him and install someone else. He could say yes and become the first black
108:28 say yes and become the first black gangster with institutional mob backing.
108:31 gangster with institutional mob backing. He said yes. The deal was structured
108:34 He said yes. The deal was structured simply. Every week, Bumpy would send 40%
108:37 simply. Every week, Bumpy would send 40% of policy profits to Luciano. In
108:40 of policy profits to Luciano. In exchange, Luciano would ensure the NYPD
108:42 exchange, Luciano would ensure the NYPD left Bumpy alone, that Jimmy Hines
108:45 left Bumpy alone, that Jimmy Hines continued protecting the racket through
108:46 continued protecting the racket through Tamony Hall, and that no other mob
108:48 Tamony Hall, and that no other mob family tried to move in on Harlem. It
108:51 family tried to move in on Harlem. It worked. By mid1 1936, Bumpy Johnson was
108:55 worked. By mid1 1936, Bumpy Johnson was running 20 policy banks, making $8,000
108:58 running 20 policy banks, making $8,000 per week personally. That's 166,000 in
109:02 per week personally. That's 166,000 in today's money, nearly 9 million per
109:05 today's money, nearly 9 million per year. He was the richest black gangster
109:08 year. He was the richest black gangster in Harlem, maybe in America. But he
109:11 in Harlem, maybe in America. But he wasn't independent. He was a partner in
109:13 wasn't independent. He was a partner in a system that extracted wealth from
109:15 a system that extracted wealth from black Harlem and sent nearly half of it
109:17 black Harlem and sent nearly half of it to white mob bosses.
109:20 to white mob bosses. The dream of black economic
109:21 The dream of black economic independence, the dream Holstein and St.
109:24 independence, the dream Holstein and St. Clare had fought for, was dead. When
109:27 Clare had fought for, was dead. When Stephanie St. Clair got out of prison in
109:29 Stephanie St. Clair got out of prison in October 1936, Bumpy explained the deal
109:32 October 1936, Bumpy explained the deal to her. She was furious. "I went to
109:35 to her. She was furious. "I went to prison refusing to pay white gangsters,"
109:37 prison refusing to pay white gangsters," she said. "And you made a deal with
109:39 she said. "And you made a deal with them?" Bumpy's response, "You went to
109:42 them?" Bumpy's response, "You went to prison? I stayed alive. I kept your
109:45 prison? I stayed alive. I kept your operation running. and now we're making
109:47 operation running. and now we're making more money than we ever made with less
109:50 more money than we ever made with less violence. This is the best deal we're
109:52 violence. This is the best deal we're going to get. St. Clare never forgave
109:55 going to get. St. Clare never forgave him. She took a portion of the
109:57 him. She took a portion of the operation, ran a few policy banks
109:59 operation, ran a few policy banks independently, but she was never the
110:01 independently, but she was never the power she'd been. By 1938, she'd mostly
110:05 power she'd been. By 1938, she'd mostly retired. She lived another 31 years,
110:08 retired. She lived another 31 years, died in 1969, bitter and largely
110:11 died in 1969, bitter and largely forgotten. Bumpy Johnson, meanwhile,
110:13 forgotten. Bumpy Johnson, meanwhile, became the king of Harlem. Not
110:15 became the king of Harlem. Not independent but powerful. He ran the
110:18 independent but powerful. He ran the policy racket for Luchiano until
110:20 policy racket for Luchiano until Luchiano got convicted on prostitution
110:22 Luchiano got convicted on prostitution charges in 1936 and sentenced to 30 to
110:26 charges in 1936 and sentenced to 30 to 50 years. Then Bumpy worked with Frank
110:29 50 years. Then Bumpy worked with Frank Costello, Luchiano's successor. Then
110:32 Costello, Luchiano's successor. Then Meer Lansky, then the Genevese family.
110:37 Meer Lansky, then the Genevese family. For 30 years, Bumpy Johnson would be the
110:39 For 30 years, Bumpy Johnson would be the mob's representative in Harlem. And in
110:42 mob's representative in Harlem. And in the 1950s, he'd mentor a young man from
110:44 the 1950s, he'd mentor a young man from North Carolina named Frank Lucas. And
110:47 North Carolina named Frank Lucas. And that relationship would lead to another
110:49 that relationship would lead to another chapter entirely, one where Harlem's
110:51 chapter entirely, one where Harlem's gangsters tried once more to break free
110:53 gangsters tried once more to break free from mob control. But that's later. For
110:56 from mob control. But that's later. For now, in 1936, the Harlem Renaissance was
110:59 now, in 1936, the Harlem Renaissance was over. The golden age was dead. The
111:02 over. The golden age was dead. The independent black policy racket had
111:04 independent black policy racket had become a subsidiary of the Italian mob.
111:07 become a subsidiary of the Italian mob. And the culture, the jazz, the
111:09 And the culture, the jazz, the nightlife, the art continued, but
111:12 nightlife, the art continued, but transformed. No longer funded by black
111:14 transformed. No longer funded by black gangsters for black audiences. Now
111:17 gangsters for black audiences. Now performed for white consumption,
111:19 performed for white consumption, controlled by white owners, extracted
111:21 controlled by white owners, extracted for white profit. The machine was
111:24 for white profit. The machine was complete and it would run for decades.
111:27 complete and it would run for decades. Lucky Luciano controlled organized crime
111:29 Lucky Luciano controlled organized crime in New York. He controlled the docks,
111:31 in New York. He controlled the docks, the unions, the prostitution rings, the
111:34 the unions, the prostitution rings, the gambling operations, and now through his
111:37 gambling operations, and now through his deal with Bumpy Johnson, Harlem's policy
111:39 deal with Bumpy Johnson, Harlem's policy racket. Luciano was different from Dutch
111:42 racket. Luciano was different from Dutch Schultz. He was born in Sicily in 1897,
111:46 Schultz. He was born in Sicily in 1897, immigrated to New York as a child, grew
111:48 immigrated to New York as a child, grew up on the Lower East Side. He was
111:51 up on the Lower East Side. He was ruthless when necessary, but preferred
111:53 ruthless when necessary, but preferred negotiation to violence. He'd organized
111:55 negotiation to violence. He'd organized the commission in 1931, brought
111:58 the commission in 1931, brought structure to organized crime. He saw the
112:00 structure to organized crime. He saw the mob as a business, not a gang, and he
112:03 mob as a business, not a gang, and he treated Bumpy Johnson like a business
112:05 treated Bumpy Johnson like a business partner, not a subordinate. But
112:08 partner, not a subordinate. But partnership doesn't mean equality. Let's
112:11 partnership doesn't mean equality. Let's be clear about the power dynamic.
112:13 be clear about the power dynamic. Luchiano controlled the police through
112:15 Luchiano controlled the police through Jimmy Hines, controlled the politicians
112:18 Jimmy Hines, controlled the politicians through Tamonn Hall, controlled the
112:20 through Tamonn Hall, controlled the violence through his army of soldiers.
112:23 violence through his army of soldiers. Bumpy controlled the street level
112:24 Bumpy controlled the street level operation in Harlem, but Luchiano
112:26 operation in Harlem, but Luchiano controlled everything that made that
112:28 controlled everything that made that operation possible.
112:30 operation possible. The deal worked like this. Bumpy's
112:32 The deal worked like this. Bumpy's policy banks collected bets 6 days a
112:35 policy banks collected bets 6 days a week. Sunday was the only day off. Each
112:38 week. Sunday was the only day off. Each bank averaged $10,000 per week in bets.
112:43 bank averaged $10,000 per week in bets. Bumpy ran 20 banks by 1937. That's
112:47 Bumpy ran 20 banks by 1937. That's 200,000 per week total, 10 million per
112:49 200,000 per week total, 10 million per year in 1937.
112:52 year in 1937. 210 million in today's money. The payout
112:56 210 million in today's money. The payout rate was standard. 60% of bets paid out
112:58 rate was standard. 60% of bets paid out in winnings, 40% kept as profit. So from
113:02 in winnings, 40% kept as profit. So from 10 million in annual bets, 4 million was
113:05 10 million in annual bets, 4 million was profit. Luchiano took 40% of that
113:08 profit. Luchiano took 40% of that profit. 1.6 million per year. Bumpy kept
113:12 profit. 1.6 million per year. Bumpy kept the rest, 2.4 million. Out of Bumpy's
113:15 the rest, 2.4 million. Out of Bumpy's share, he paid his runners, collectors,
113:18 share, he paid his runners, collectors, and bank managers. His personal take was
113:21 and bank managers. His personal take was about 500,000 per year, 10 million
113:24 about 500,000 per year, 10 million today. Bumpy Johnson was rich. By any
113:27 today. Bumpy Johnson was rich. By any measure, he was successful. But Harlem,
113:30 measure, he was successful. But Harlem, Harlem was being drained. 10 million per
113:33 Harlem was being drained. 10 million per year in bets from the poorest
113:35 year in bets from the poorest neighborhood in New York, and 1.6
113:37 neighborhood in New York, and 1.6 million of that going straight to
113:38 million of that going straight to Italian gangsters downtown. That money
113:41 Italian gangsters downtown. That money could have built businesses, schools,
113:43 could have built businesses, schools, housing. Instead, it paid for Luchiano's
113:46 housing. Instead, it paid for Luchiano's lawyers, his bribes, his mansion in the
113:49 lawyers, his bribes, his mansion in the Bronx. And the culture that had made
113:52 Bronx. And the culture that had made Harlem famous, it was dying. Let's look
113:55 Harlem famous, it was dying. Let's look at what happened to the major
113:57 at what happened to the major institutions between 1936 and 1940. The
114:01 institutions between 1936 and 1940. The Cotton Club moved downtown in 1936.
114:04 Cotton Club moved downtown in 1936. On Madden sold it. He was getting too
114:07 On Madden sold it. He was getting too much heat from federal prosecutors and
114:08 much heat from federal prosecutors and decided to retire to Hot Springs,
114:10 decided to retire to Hot Springs, Arkansas. The new owners moved the club
114:13 Arkansas. The new owners moved the club to 48th Street in Midtown Manhattan,
114:16 to 48th Street in Midtown Manhattan, turned it into a Broadway theater style
114:18 turned it into a Broadway theater style venue. Big productions, famous singers,
114:21 venue. Big productions, famous singers, but the connection to Harlem was
114:23 but the connection to Harlem was severed. The authentic Harlem experience
114:26 severed. The authentic Harlem experience was now being performed 40 blocks away
114:28 was now being performed 40 blocks away for white tourists who never had to set
114:31 for white tourists who never had to set foot in a black neighborhood.
114:33 foot in a black neighborhood. Duke Ellington had left the Cotton Club
114:35 Duke Ellington had left the Cotton Club in 1931, started touring nationally and
114:39 in 1931, started touring nationally and internationally. By 1936, he was playing
114:42 internationally. By 1936, he was playing Carnegie Hall, recording constantly,
114:45 Carnegie Hall, recording constantly, making real money, but he wasn't playing
114:48 making real money, but he wasn't playing Harlem regularly. There was no venue
114:50 Harlem regularly. There was no venue that could afford him, and the venues
114:52 that could afford him, and the venues that existed were mobc controlled
114:54 that existed were mobc controlled anyway. Ellington had transcended
114:57 anyway. Ellington had transcended Harlem, which was good for him, but
114:59 Harlem, which was good for him, but meant Harlem lost its most famous
115:01 meant Harlem lost its most famous artist. Cab Callaway was in a similar
115:04 artist. Cab Callaway was in a similar position. After leaving the Cotton Club
115:06 position. After leaving the Cotton Club in 1934, he toured constantly, appeared
115:10 in 1934, he toured constantly, appeared in films, became a national celebrity,
115:13 in films, became a national celebrity, but like Ellington, he didn't come back
115:15 but like Ellington, he didn't come back to Harlem except for special occasions.
115:18 to Harlem except for special occasions. The neighborhood that had made him
115:19 The neighborhood that had made him famous couldn't hold him anymore. The
115:22 famous couldn't hold him anymore. The Dark Tower had closed in 1931 when Aelia
115:26 Dark Tower had closed in 1931 when Aelia Walker died. There was no replacement,
115:28 Walker died. There was no replacement, no salon where artists and gangsters and
115:31 no salon where artists and gangsters and intellectuals mixed. No space for that
115:34 intellectuals mixed. No space for that kind of cultural cross-pollination.
115:36 kind of cultural cross-pollination. The literary magazines, opportunity, the
115:39 The literary magazines, opportunity, the crisis fire. They were all struggling or
115:43 crisis fire. They were all struggling or defunct by 1937.
115:45 defunct by 1937. The funding had dried up. Casper
115:48 The funding had dried up. Casper Holstein wasn't giving money anymore. He
115:50 Holstein wasn't giving money anymore. He was barely surviving. The white patrons
115:53 was barely surviving. The white patrons had moved on to other causes. And the
115:55 had moved on to other causes. And the depression meant nobody had money for
115:57 depression meant nobody had money for frivolous things like poetry magazines.
116:00 frivolous things like poetry magazines. Langston Hughes was in California
116:02 Langston Hughes was in California working for the Hollywood studios and
116:04 working for the Hollywood studios and hating it. They wanted him to write
116:06 hating it. They wanted him to write stereotypical black characters for
116:08 stereotypical black characters for segregated films. He did it because he
116:10 segregated films. He did it because he needed the money, but it destroyed
116:12 needed the money, but it destroyed something in him. He wrote to a friend
116:14 something in him. He wrote to a friend in 1937.
116:16 in 1937. I came to California to escape Harlem's
116:18 I came to California to escape Harlem's poverty. Instead, I found Harlem's
116:21 poverty. Instead, I found Harlem's stereotypes are more profitable than
116:22 stereotypes are more profitable than Harlem's reality. I'm making good money
116:25 Harlem's reality. I'm making good money writing lies.
116:27 writing lies. Zoran Neil Hursten published Their Eyes
116:29 Zoran Neil Hursten published Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937,
116:32 Were Watching God in 1937, one of the greatest American novels ever
116:34 one of the greatest American novels ever written. It sold poorly, less than 5,000
116:38 written. It sold poorly, less than 5,000 copies. Why? Because it didn't fit what
116:42 copies. Why? Because it didn't fit what white publishers wanted from black
116:43 white publishers wanted from black writers. They wanted protest novels,
116:46 writers. They wanted protest novels, sociology, racial struggle. Hursten
116:49 sociology, racial struggle. Hursten wrote about a black woman's interior
116:51 wrote about a black woman's interior life, her desires, her autonomy.
116:54 life, her desires, her autonomy. Critics, including black critics like
116:57 Critics, including black critics like Richard Wright, dismissed it as folk
116:59 Richard Wright, dismissed it as folk literature that avoided the real issues.
117:02 literature that avoided the real issues. The book went out of print in 1944.
117:05 The book went out of print in 1944. Hursten died in poverty in 1960, was
117:07 Hursten died in poverty in 1960, was buried in an unmarked grave. It took
117:10 buried in an unmarked grave. It took Alice Walker, finding that grave in
117:12 Alice Walker, finding that grave in 1973, to resurrect Hursten's reputation.
117:16 1973, to resurrect Hursten's reputation. That's what happened to the Harlem
117:17 That's what happened to the Harlem Renaissance. The artists who survived
117:20 Renaissance. The artists who survived did so by leaving Harlem, compromising
117:22 did so by leaving Harlem, compromising their vision or dying in obscurity. The
117:25 their vision or dying in obscurity. The ones who stayed, they struggled. Smalls
117:28 ones who stayed, they struggled. Smalls Paradise was still open, but Ed Smalls
117:30 Paradise was still open, but Ed Smalls had sold it in 1938 to white owners. The
117:34 had sold it in 1938 to white owners. The new owners kept the name, kept the
117:36 new owners kept the name, kept the singing waiters, but it became a tourist
117:38 singing waiters, but it became a tourist destination, a place where white people
117:41 destination, a place where white people came to see authentic Harlem nightife
117:43 came to see authentic Harlem nightife that had been sanitized for their
117:45 that had been sanitized for their comfort. The rent party circuit still
117:48 comfort. The rent party circuit still existed, but it was different. In the
117:50 existed, but it was different. In the 1920s, rent parties had been cultural
117:53 1920s, rent parties had been cultural incubators where jazz was invented. By
117:56 incubators where jazz was invented. By the late 1930s, they were just survival.
117:59 the late 1930s, they were just survival. The music was still good. There were
118:01 The music was still good. There were always talented musicians in Harlem, but
118:03 always talented musicians in Harlem, but the joy was gone. People were dancing to
118:06 the joy was gone. People were dancing to forget, not to celebrate. And the one
118:09 forget, not to celebrate. And the one place that still represented what Harlem
118:11 place that still represented what Harlem had been, what it could have been, the
118:14 had been, what it could have been, the Seavoy Ballroom. The Seavoi in 1937 was
118:18 Seavoy Ballroom. The Seavoi in 1937 was still thriving, still integrated, still
118:21 still thriving, still integrated, still managed by Charles Buchanan, the black
118:23 managed by Charles Buchanan, the black manager who'd made it work, still home
118:25 manager who'd made it work, still home to Chick Webb's Orchestra, which by 1937
118:29 to Chick Webb's Orchestra, which by 1937 was the most exciting band in jazz and
118:31 was the most exciting band in jazz and still the place where the Lindy Hop was
118:33 still the place where the Lindy Hop was being performed at its highest level.
118:36 being performed at its highest level. But even the Seavoi was under pressure.
118:38 But even the Seavoi was under pressure. Not financial pressure, it was making
118:40 Not financial pressure, it was making money. Moral pressure. White society was
118:44 money. Moral pressure. White society was increasingly uncomfortable with the
118:46 increasingly uncomfortable with the Seavoy's integrated dance floor.
118:48 Seavoy's integrated dance floor. Uncomfortable with black men and white
118:50 Uncomfortable with black men and white women dancing together. Uncomfortable
118:52 women dancing together. Uncomfortable with the sexual energy, the freedom, the
118:55 with the sexual energy, the freedom, the implicit challenge to segregation.
118:58 implicit challenge to segregation. In 1937, the Catholic Church launched a
119:01 In 1937, the Catholic Church launched a campaign against the Seavoi, calling it
119:03 campaign against the Seavoi, calling it a den of iniquity, where interracial
119:06 a den of iniquity, where interracial mingling led to immorality.
119:09 mingling led to immorality. The campaign didn't work. The Seavoy
119:11 The campaign didn't work. The Seavoy stayed open, but it showed which way the
119:14 stayed open, but it showed which way the wind was blowing. The Renaissance was
119:16 wind was blowing. The Renaissance was over. But nobody had officially declared
119:19 over. But nobody had officially declared it dead. There was no ceremony, no
119:22 it dead. There was no ceremony, no announcement, no moment when everyone
119:24 announcement, no moment when everyone agreed it was finished. It just slowly
119:26 agreed it was finished. It just slowly faded. Like music getting quieter until
119:28 faded. Like music getting quieter until you can't hear it anymore. But let's
119:30 you can't hear it anymore. But let's talk about what actually killed it. Not
119:33 talk about what actually killed it. Not the depression, though that didn't help.
119:36 the depression, though that didn't help. Not the mob takeover, though that
119:38 Not the mob takeover, though that extracted the wealth that had funded it.
119:40 extracted the wealth that had funded it. What killed the Harlem Renaissance was
119:42 What killed the Harlem Renaissance was theft. Cultural theft. The systematic
119:45 theft. Cultural theft. The systematic appropriation of black culture by white
119:48 appropriation of black culture by white America. Stripped of its black creators,
119:50 America. Stripped of its black creators, repackaged and sold back without credit
119:53 repackaged and sold back without credit or compensation. By 1937, swing music
119:56 or compensation. By 1937, swing music was the most popular music in America.
119:59 was the most popular music in America. Benny Goodman was the king of swing.
120:01 Benny Goodman was the king of swing. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Arty Shaw,
120:05 Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Arty Shaw, these were the biggest names in music.
120:08 these were the biggest names in music. and every single one of them had learned
120:10 and every single one of them had learned from black musicians. Goodman's
120:12 from black musicians. Goodman's arrangements were written by Fletcher
120:13 arrangements were written by Fletcher Henderson, a black band leader. Miller's
120:16 Henderson, a black band leader. Miller's style came from studying Chick Webb.
120:18 style came from studying Chick Webb. Shaw copied Duke Ellington's harmonies.
120:21 Shaw copied Duke Ellington's harmonies. But the money, the fame, the
120:23 But the money, the fame, the recognition, that went to white
120:25 recognition, that went to white musicians. Goodman made $200,000 per
120:29 musicians. Goodman made $200,000 per year in 1938. That's 4.4 million today.
120:34 year in 1938. That's 4.4 million today. Fletcher Henderson, the man who wrote
120:35 Fletcher Henderson, the man who wrote Goodman's arrangements, made 5,000 per
120:38 Goodman's arrangements, made 5,000 per year. Goodman made 40 times more than
120:41 year. Goodman made 40 times more than the black genius who created his sound.
120:43 the black genius who created his sound. The same pattern everywhere. Elvis
120:46 The same pattern everywhere. Elvis Presley would later be called the king
120:48 Presley would later be called the king of rock and roll, a genre invented by
120:50 of rock and roll, a genre invented by black musicians. Pat Boon would cover
120:52 black musicians. Pat Boon would cover Little Richard's songs, make them safe
120:55 Little Richard's songs, make them safe for white audiences, and outsell the
120:57 for white audiences, and outsell the originals 10 to1.
121:00 originals 10 to1. Every major American musical form, jazz,
121:02 Every major American musical form, jazz, blues, rock and roll, R&B, hip hop,
121:05 blues, rock and roll, R&B, hip hop, would be invented by black artists and
121:07 would be invented by black artists and commercialized by white performers. And
121:10 commercialized by white performers. And it started in Harlem in the 1930s. The
121:13 it started in Harlem in the 1930s. The Renaissance created something
121:14 Renaissance created something extraordinary, and white America took
121:17 extraordinary, and white America took it, removed the black faces, and called
121:19 it, removed the black faces, and called it theirs. Duke Ellington understood
121:22 it theirs. Duke Ellington understood this. In 1938, he gave an interview
121:26 this. In 1938, he gave an interview where he said, "Jazz is black music. It
121:29 where he said, "Jazz is black music. It came from black culture, black history,
121:32 came from black culture, black history, black pain, and black joy. But America
121:35 black pain, and black joy. But America doesn't want to acknowledge that. They
121:38 doesn't want to acknowledge that. They want the music without the people who
121:39 want the music without the people who made it. They want the culture without
121:42 made it. They want the culture without the humanity. So they take our sound,
121:45 the humanity. So they take our sound, give it to white musicians, and pretend
121:47 give it to white musicians, and pretend we never existed. And there's nothing we
121:49 we never existed. And there's nothing we can do about it. Because we don't
121:51 can do about it. Because we don't control the recording studios, we don't
121:54 control the recording studios, we don't control the radio stations. We don't
121:56 control the radio stations. We don't control the distribution. We just create
121:59 control the distribution. We just create and they take. That was the final death
122:02 and they take. That was the final death of the Renaissance. Not poverty, not
122:05 of the Renaissance. Not poverty, not violence, not mob control. Theft, the
122:09 violence, not mob control. Theft, the systematic erasure of black creators
122:11 systematic erasure of black creators from the culture they'd built. And
122:13 from the culture they'd built. And Harlem, Harlem was left with the policy
122:16 Harlem, Harlem was left with the policy racket, the nightclubs that served white
122:18 racket, the nightclubs that served white tourists, and a growing sense that the
122:21 tourists, and a growing sense that the golden age was gone forever.
122:24 golden age was gone forever. Bumpy Johnson was making 500,000 per
122:27 Bumpy Johnson was making 500,000 per year, living in a brownstone on Edgecomb
122:29 year, living in a brownstone on Edgecomb Avenue, wearing custom suits, driving a
122:32 Avenue, wearing custom suits, driving a Cadillac. But he knew what had been
122:34 Cadillac. But he knew what had been lost. He'd seen the Renaissance at its
122:37 lost. He'd seen the Renaissance at its peak. Seen the moment when Harlem
122:39 peak. Seen the moment when Harlem controlled its own culture and economy.
122:41 controlled its own culture and economy. And now he was managing that culture's
122:43 And now he was managing that culture's exploitation on behalf of the Italian
122:45 exploitation on behalf of the Italian mob. He justified it the same way
122:48 mob. He justified it the same way Holstein and St. Clair had justified
122:50 Holstein and St. Clair had justified their policy operations. Better me than
122:54 their policy operations. Better me than someone worse. Better 40% to Luchiano
122:56 someone worse. Better 40% to Luchiano than 70% to Schultz. Better black
122:59 than 70% to Schultz. Better black managers running the day-to-day than
123:01 managers running the day-to-day than white gangsters directly controlling
123:03 white gangsters directly controlling everything. It's not independence, but
123:06 everything. It's not independence, but it's survival. And then in 1936, Lucky
123:10 it's survival. And then in 1936, Lucky Luciano got arrested. Thomas Dwey, the
123:13 Luciano got arrested. Thomas Dwey, the prosecutor Schultz had wanted to kill,
123:15 prosecutor Schultz had wanted to kill, had built a case against Luciano. Not
123:18 had built a case against Luciano. Not for murder, not for bootlegging, not for
123:21 for murder, not for bootlegging, not for policy gambling, for running a
123:23 policy gambling, for running a prostitution ring. Dwey couldn't prove
123:25 prostitution ring. Dwey couldn't prove the murders, couldn't trace the policy
123:27 the murders, couldn't trace the policy money, couldn't connect Luchiano to the
123:30 money, couldn't connect Luchiano to the violence. But prostitution, he had
123:32 violence. But prostitution, he had witnesses, he had evidence, he had
123:35 witnesses, he had evidence, he had testimony.
123:37 testimony. In June 1936, Lucky Luciano was
123:40 In June 1936, Lucky Luciano was convicted on 62 counts of compulsory
123:43 convicted on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution. The sentence 30 to 50
123:46 prostitution. The sentence 30 to 50 years in state prison. The most powerful
123:49 years in state prison. The most powerful gangster in New York gone. Bumpy
123:52 gangster in New York gone. Bumpy Johnson's protector was in prison. And
123:54 Johnson's protector was in prison. And the deal they'd made, it transferred to
123:57 the deal they'd made, it transferred to Frank Costello, Luchiano's underboss,
124:00 Frank Costello, Luchiano's underboss, who took over the organization. Costello
124:02 who took over the organization. Costello honored the arrangement, but the
124:04 honored the arrangement, but the relationship was different. Castello
124:06 relationship was different. Castello didn't trust Bumpy the way Luchiano had.
124:09 didn't trust Bumpy the way Luchiano had. The partnership became more
124:10 The partnership became more transactional, less personal. But Bumpy
124:13 transactional, less personal. But Bumpy adapted. He always adapted. By 1940, he
124:17 adapted. He always adapted. By 1940, he was still running Harlem's policy
124:19 was still running Harlem's policy racket, still making hundreds of
124:21 racket, still making hundreds of thousands per year, still the most
124:23 thousands per year, still the most powerful black gangster in New York. But
124:26 powerful black gangster in New York. But the world was changing. War was coming.
124:29 the world was changing. War was coming. And that war would transform Harlem one
124:31 And that war would transform Harlem one more time. The Seavoy Ballroom, 1938.
124:36 more time. The Seavoy Ballroom, 1938. The last symbol of what Harlem had been.
124:39 The last symbol of what Harlem had been. While the Cotton Club had moved
124:40 While the Cotton Club had moved downtown, while Smalls Paradise had sold
124:42 downtown, while Smalls Paradise had sold to white owners, while the Renaissance
124:44 to white owners, while the Renaissance had scattered and died, the Seavoy
124:47 had scattered and died, the Seavoy endured, still integrated, still managed
124:50 endured, still integrated, still managed by Charles Buchanan, still home to the
124:52 by Charles Buchanan, still home to the greatest dancers and the greatest music
124:55 greatest dancers and the greatest music in American jazz, Chick Webb was at his
124:58 in American jazz, Chick Webb was at his peak. Webb had been the Seavoy's house
125:00 peak. Webb had been the Seavoy's house band leader since 1927.
125:03 band leader since 1927. By 1938, he'd built the most powerful
125:05 By 1938, he'd built the most powerful swing orchestra in the country. 15
125:08 swing orchestra in the country. 15 musicians, arrangements by Edgar Samson
125:10 musicians, arrangements by Edgar Samson and Benny Carter, and Webb himself on
125:12 and Benny Carter, and Webb himself on drums. The most dynamic, driving,
125:15 drums. The most dynamic, driving, unstoppable drummer in jazz. Webb was a
125:18 unstoppable drummer in jazz. Webb was a physical marvel. He was 4 feet tall,
125:21 physical marvel. He was 4 feet tall, hunchbacked from tuberculosis of the
125:23 hunchbacked from tuberculosis of the spine, and weighed maybe 80 lb. He sat
125:26 spine, and weighed maybe 80 lb. He sat on a raised platform so he could reach
125:28 on a raised platform so he could reach his drums, had custom pedals built
125:31 his drums, had custom pedals built because his legs were too short for
125:32 because his legs were too short for standard equipment. He looked fragile.
125:34 standard equipment. He looked fragile. He played like thunder. The Seavoy's
125:37 He played like thunder. The Seavoy's battle of the band's format had made
125:39 battle of the band's format had made Webb a legend. Visiting orchestras would
125:41 Webb a legend. Visiting orchestras would challenge the house band and Webb would
125:44 challenge the house band and Webb would destroy them. Count Basis came in 1937
125:47 destroy them. Count Basis came in 1937 with his Kansas City Orchestra, widely
125:50 with his Kansas City Orchestra, widely considered the hardest swinging band in
125:52 considered the hardest swinging band in America. Webb's band crushed them. Basy
125:55 America. Webb's band crushed them. Basy later said, "I couldn't believe it. We
125:58 later said, "I couldn't believe it. We brought our agame and Chick Webb just
126:00 brought our agame and Chick Webb just overwhelmed us. I've never heard a band
126:02 overwhelmed us. I've never heard a band play harder or a drummer play stronger.
126:05 play harder or a drummer play stronger. He didn't just beat us, he made us look
126:07 He didn't just beat us, he made us look amateur. The Seavoi in 1938 was doing
126:11 amateur. The Seavoi in 1938 was doing 7,000 people on Saturday nights. 7,000.
126:15 7,000 people on Saturday nights. 7,000. The fire marshal constantly threatened
126:17 The fire marshal constantly threatened to shut them down for overcrowding, but
126:19 to shut them down for overcrowding, but Charles Buchanan had enough political
126:21 Charles Buchanan had enough political connections and paid enough in bribes to
126:23 connections and paid enough in bribes to stay open. And the Lindy Hop was at its
126:26 stay open. And the Lindy Hop was at its peak. Frankie Manning, Norma Miller,
126:29 peak. Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. These dancers
126:31 Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. These dancers were performing feats of athletic
126:33 were performing feats of athletic brilliance that wouldn't be matched for
126:35 brilliance that wouldn't be matched for decades. The Lindy Hop had evolved from
126:38 decades. The Lindy Hop had evolved from a street dance to an art form. Dancers
126:41 a street dance to an art form. Dancers were throwing their partners 6 feet in
126:43 were throwing their partners 6 feet in the air, catching them, spinning them,
126:45 the air, catching them, spinning them, creating shapes with their bodies that
126:47 creating shapes with their bodies that defied physics. And critically, the
126:50 defied physics. And critically, the Seavoi was still integrated. Black and
126:52 Seavoi was still integrated. Black and white dancers on the same floor, not
126:55 white dancers on the same floor, not just tolerating each other, dancing
126:57 just tolerating each other, dancing together, partnering, creating together.
127:01 together, partnering, creating together. In 1938, America, where segregation was
127:04 In 1938, America, where segregation was law in the south and practice in the
127:06 law in the south and practice in the north, the Seavoy was a radical space,
127:09 north, the Seavoy was a radical space, but that radicalism made it a target.
127:12 but that radicalism made it a target. The white establishment had tolerated
127:13 The white establishment had tolerated the seavoi when it was a curiosity, when
127:16 the seavoi when it was a curiosity, when it was contained, when it was in Harlem
127:18 it was contained, when it was in Harlem where white people didn't have to see it
127:20 where white people didn't have to see it unless they chose to slum. But by 1938,
127:24 unless they chose to slum. But by 1938, the Seavoy's reputation had spread. It
127:26 the Seavoy's reputation had spread. It was written about in newspapers,
127:28 was written about in newspapers, featured in magazines, talked about on
127:31 featured in magazines, talked about on radio. It was no longer a secret, and
127:34 radio. It was no longer a secret, and that visibility made it dangerous. In
127:37 that visibility made it dangerous. In 1939, the Catholic Church's campaign
127:39 1939, the Catholic Church's campaign against the Seavoi intensified. Father
127:42 against the Seavoi intensified. Father Edward Lodge Curran, a prominent
127:44 Edward Lodge Curran, a prominent Brooklyn priest, gave sermons about the
127:46 Brooklyn priest, gave sermons about the moral decay of interracial dancing. He
127:50 moral decay of interracial dancing. He called the Seavoy a breeding ground for
127:52 called the Seavoy a breeding ground for race mixing and demanded the city shut
127:54 race mixing and demanded the city shut it down. The campaign was explicitly
127:57 it down. The campaign was explicitly racist. Nobody was calling for the
127:59 racist. Nobody was calling for the closure of white only nightclubs where
128:01 closure of white only nightclubs where sexual impropriy was just as common. But
128:04 sexual impropriy was just as common. But an integrated dance hall where black and
128:06 an integrated dance hall where black and white bodies moved together, that was
128:09 white bodies moved together, that was intolerable.
128:10 intolerable. Charles Buchanan fought back. He wrote
128:14 Charles Buchanan fought back. He wrote editorials in the Amsterdam News
128:15 editorials in the Amsterdam News defending the Seavoi as a positive
128:17 defending the Seavoi as a positive institution that promoted racial
128:19 institution that promoted racial harmony. He got endorsements from
128:21 harmony. He got endorsements from clergy, community leaders, even some
128:24 clergy, community leaders, even some white liberals. He argued that the
128:26 white liberals. He argued that the Seavoi was doing exactly what America
128:28 Seavoi was doing exactly what America claimed to stand for, bringing people
128:30 claimed to stand for, bringing people together across racial lines. It didn't
128:33 together across racial lines. It didn't matter because the campaign wasn't
128:35 matter because the campaign wasn't really about morality. It was about
128:38 really about morality. It was about control. White society was uncomfortable
128:41 control. White society was uncomfortable with a black managed space where white
128:43 with a black managed space where white women danced with black men, where
128:46 women danced with black men, where racial boundaries were crossed, where
128:48 racial boundaries were crossed, where the social order was challenged. The
128:50 the social order was challenged. The Seavoi had to be neutralized. In April
128:53 Seavoi had to be neutralized. In April 1940, the New York City Department of
128:55 1940, the New York City Department of Health announced that the Seavoy
128:57 Health announced that the Seavoy Ballroom was being investigated for
128:59 Ballroom was being investigated for violations of the sanitary code. The
129:02 violations of the sanitary code. The specific allegation, the Seavoi was a
129:04 specific allegation, the Seavoi was a center for prostitution and veneerial
129:06 center for prostitution and veneerial disease transmission. This was a lie.
129:09 disease transmission. This was a lie. There was no evidence, no arrests for
129:12 There was no evidence, no arrests for prostitution at the Seavoi, no
129:14 prostitution at the Seavoi, no documented cases of disease
129:16 documented cases of disease transmission. But the accusation didn't
129:18 transmission. But the accusation didn't need to be true. It just needed to be
129:21 need to be true. It just needed to be public.
129:22 public. On April 21st, 1940, the city ordered
129:26 On April 21st, 1940, the city ordered the Seavoy closed, padlocked. The stated
129:29 the Seavoy closed, padlocked. The stated reason, a public health menace,
129:33 reason, a public health menace, the real reason, interracial dancing,
129:36 the real reason, interracial dancing, the black community erupted. The
129:38 the black community erupted. The Amsterdam news ran front page headlines.
129:41 Amsterdam news ran front page headlines. Seavoy closure is racial attack.
129:44 Seavoy closure is racial attack. Protests were organized. Petitions
129:46 Protests were organized. Petitions circulated. Over 10,000 people signed
129:49 circulated. Over 10,000 people signed demands to reopen the ballroom. Adam
129:52 demands to reopen the ballroom. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the newly elected
129:54 Clayton Powell Jr., the newly elected city councilman from Harlem, gave
129:56 city councilman from Harlem, gave speeches calling the closure naked
129:58 speeches calling the closure naked racism, disguised as public health. It
130:01 racism, disguised as public health. It didn't work. The Seavoy stayed closed
130:03 didn't work. The Seavoy stayed closed for 16 months. When it finally reopened
130:06 for 16 months. When it finally reopened in October 1941, the damage was done.
130:10 in October 1941, the damage was done. The momentum was broken. The dancers had
130:12 The momentum was broken. The dancers had scattered. Chick Webb was dead. He died
130:15 scattered. Chick Webb was dead. He died in June 1939 at age 34. Tuberculosis
130:20 in June 1939 at age 34. Tuberculosis finally killing him. The big bands that
130:22 finally killing him. The big bands that had made the Seavoy famous were touring
130:24 had made the Seavoy famous were touring nationally and didn't need it anymore.
130:27 nationally and didn't need it anymore. The Seavoy reopened to much smaller
130:29 The Seavoy reopened to much smaller crowds. It would stay open until 1958,
130:32 crowds. It would stay open until 1958, but it was never the same. The closure
130:35 but it was never the same. The closure in 1940 was the symbolic death of the
130:38 in 1940 was the symbolic death of the Harlem Renaissance. The last institution
130:41 Harlem Renaissance. The last institution that represented what Harlem had been
130:43 that represented what Harlem had been integrated, joyful, culturally
130:46 integrated, joyful, culturally generative, had been destroyed by white
130:48 generative, had been destroyed by white authority for being exactly those
130:50 authority for being exactly those things. Frankie Manning, the Lindy Hop
130:53 things. Frankie Manning, the Lindy Hop dancer, later said, "When they closed
130:55 dancer, later said, "When they closed the Seavoy in 1940, they weren't just
130:58 the Seavoy in 1940, they weren't just closing a dance hall. They were closing
131:00 closing a dance hall. They were closing a vision of what America could be. For 2
131:03 a vision of what America could be. For 2 hours on a Saturday night, we lived in a
131:05 hours on a Saturday night, we lived in a world where race didn't matter. where
131:08 world where race didn't matter. where the only thing that mattered was whether
131:09 the only thing that mattered was whether you could dance. And America couldn't
131:12 you could dance. And America couldn't tolerate that. They killed it because it
131:15 tolerate that. They killed it because it was possible. Because we proved
131:17 was possible. Because we proved integration could work. Because we
131:19 integration could work. Because we showed that the racial order was
131:20 showed that the racial order was artificial, unnecessary, destructive,
131:24 artificial, unnecessary, destructive, and that was more dangerous than any
131:25 and that was more dangerous than any crime we could have committed. The
131:28 crime we could have committed. The Seavoy's closure coincided with another
131:30 Seavoy's closure coincided with another transformation, World War II. And that
131:33 transformation, World War II. And that war would change everything about
131:35 war would change everything about Harlem, about black consciousness, about
131:38 Harlem, about black consciousness, about the relationship between black gangsters
131:40 the relationship between black gangsters and black communities. December 7th,
131:43 and black communities. December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor, America enters World
131:47 1941, Pearl Harbor, America enters World War II, and within months, 500,000 black
131:51 War II, and within months, 500,000 black men would enlist or be drafted into the
131:53 men would enlist or be drafted into the armed forces. The war transformed black
131:56 armed forces. The war transformed black America's relationship with the nation.
131:59 America's relationship with the nation. Black soldiers served in segregated
132:01 Black soldiers served in segregated units, were given the worst assignments,
132:04 units, were given the worst assignments, faced discrimination in the military
132:06 faced discrimination in the military just as they did in civilian life. But
132:09 just as they did in civilian life. But they also saw the world. They fought in
132:12 they also saw the world. They fought in Europe, in Asia, in the Pacific. And
132:15 Europe, in Asia, in the Pacific. And they saw societies that weren't
132:17 they saw societies that weren't segregated. They saw French civilians
132:20 segregated. They saw French civilians treating them with respect. They saw
132:23 treating them with respect. They saw Italian women who didn't fear them. They
132:26 Italian women who didn't fear them. They saw that American racism wasn't natural
132:28 saw that American racism wasn't natural law. It was an American choice. When
132:32 law. It was an American choice. When those soldiers came home, they came back
132:34 those soldiers came home, they came back different, less willing to accept
132:36 different, less willing to accept discrimination, less afraid, more
132:39 discrimination, less afraid, more militant. And Harlem, Harlem had already
132:43 militant. And Harlem, Harlem had already been militant, already been angry. The
132:46 been militant, already been angry. The war made that anger organized, but we're
132:48 war made that anger organized, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's talk
132:51 getting ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about what the war did to Harlem's
132:53 about what the war did to Harlem's economy, specifically the nightlife and
132:56 economy, specifically the nightlife and the criminal underworld.
132:58 the criminal underworld. World War II was good for business. The
133:00 World War II was good for business. The wartime economy brought jobs, factories
133:03 wartime economy brought jobs, factories that built planes, ships, ammunition.
133:06 that built planes, ships, ammunition. They needed workers. Black unemployment
133:09 They needed workers. Black unemployment in Harlem dropped from 50% in 1940 to
133:12 in Harlem dropped from 50% in 1940 to 15% by 1943.
133:15 15% by 1943. People had money again, not wealth, but
133:18 People had money again, not wealth, but income. enough to eat, pay rent, and
133:21 income. enough to eat, pay rent, and yes, play policy. The policy racket
133:24 yes, play policy. The policy racket exploded during the war. Bumpy Johnson's
133:27 exploded during the war. Bumpy Johnson's operation went from collecting 200,000
133:29 operation went from collecting 200,000 per week in 1940 to 400,000 per week by
133:33 per week in 1940 to 400,000 per week by 1944.
133:35 1944. Why? Because people had more money to
133:38 Why? Because people had more money to bet and because wartime created anxiety.
133:41 bet and because wartime created anxiety. Husbands, sons, brothers overseas
133:44 Husbands, sons, brothers overseas fighting, families at home praying
133:47 fighting, families at home praying they'd come back. policy sold hope. Bet
133:50 they'd come back. policy sold hope. Bet a dime, maybe win $6. Maybe that $6 is a
133:55 a dime, maybe win $6. Maybe that $6 is a sign your son will survive. Bumpy
133:57 sign your son will survive. Bumpy Johnson was making a million dollars per
133:59 Johnson was making a million dollars per year personally by 1944.
134:02 year personally by 1944. That's 17 million in today's money. He
134:05 That's 17 million in today's money. He was the richest black man in Harlem,
134:07 was the richest black man in Harlem, possibly the richest black man in New
134:09 possibly the richest black man in New York. He lived on Edgecom Avenue in
134:12 York. He lived on Edgecom Avenue in Sugar Hill, the neighborhood where the
134:14 Sugar Hill, the neighborhood where the black elite lived. His neighbors were
134:16 black elite lived. His neighbors were doctors, lawyers, entertainers. He fit
134:20 doctors, lawyers, entertainers. He fit right in. Except they made their money
134:22 right in. Except they made their money legally, and he didn't. But the war also
134:25 legally, and he didn't. But the war also changed the nightife. The clubs that had
134:27 changed the nightife. The clubs that had served white slumbers in the 1930s,
134:30 served white slumbers in the 1930s, they now served The Apollo Theater
134:32 they now served The Apollo Theater became the center of Harlem's wartime
134:34 became the center of Harlem's wartime culture. It had opened in 1934, but
134:38 culture. It had opened in 1934, but during the war, it became the premier
134:40 during the war, it became the premier venue for black entertainment. Every
134:42 venue for black entertainment. Every Wednesday night was amateur night where
134:45 Wednesday night was amateur night where unknown performers could compete for a
134:46 unknown performers could compete for a cash prize. This is where Ella
134:49 cash prize. This is where Ella Fitzgerald got discovered in 1934, Sarah
134:52 Fitzgerald got discovered in 1934, Sarah Vaughn in 1942,
134:54 Vaughn in 1942, James Brown in 1956 after the war. The
134:58 James Brown in 1956 after the war. The Apollo proved that Harlem still had
135:00 Apollo proved that Harlem still had cultural generative power. It just
135:02 cultural generative power. It just wasn't funded by gangsters anymore. It
135:05 wasn't funded by gangsters anymore. It was commercial, professionalized,
135:07 was commercial, professionalized, sanitized, and the music was changing,
135:10 sanitized, and the music was changing, too. Swing was dying. The big band era
135:14 too. Swing was dying. The big band era was ending partially because of the war.
135:16 was ending partially because of the war. Musicians were getting drafted.
135:18 Musicians were getting drafted. Traveling was restricted. The economics
135:21 Traveling was restricted. The economics of touring a 15piece orchestra became
135:24 of touring a 15piece orchestra became impossible. But something new was
135:26 impossible. But something new was emerging. Bbop. In the early 1940s,
135:30 emerging. Bbop. In the early 1940s, young musicians like Charlie Parker,
135:32 young musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Theonius Monk, and Bud
135:35 Dizzy Gillespie, Theonius Monk, and Bud Powell started playing afterhour
135:37 Powell started playing afterhour sessions at clubs like Mintson's
135:39 sessions at clubs like Mintson's Playhouse on 118th Street. They were
135:42 Playhouse on 118th Street. They were inventing a new style of jazz that was
135:44 inventing a new style of jazz that was faster, more complex, more aggressive
135:46 faster, more complex, more aggressive than swing. Bbop couldn't be danced to
135:50 than swing. Bbop couldn't be danced to easily. It wasn't meant for white
135:52 easily. It wasn't meant for white audiences. It was music for musicians by
135:55 audiences. It was music for musicians by musicians. Bbop was also resistance. The
135:59 musicians. Bbop was also resistance. The swing era had seen black music
136:01 swing era had seen black music appropriated by white band leaders who
136:03 appropriated by white band leaders who made millions. Bbop was designed to be
136:06 made millions. Bbop was designed to be uncopyable. The tempos were too fast,
136:09 uncopyable. The tempos were too fast, the harmonies too complex, the
136:11 the harmonies too complex, the improvisations too challenging. You
136:14 improvisations too challenging. You couldn't learn bbop from sheet music.
136:16 couldn't learn bbop from sheet music. You had to be there in the clubs
136:18 You had to be there in the clubs learning from the masters. And those
136:20 learning from the masters. And those clubs, they were in Harlem. black spaces
136:24 clubs, they were in Harlem. black spaces for black musicians, creating black art
136:27 for black musicians, creating black art that white America couldn't steal as
136:29 that white America couldn't steal as easily. Charlie Parker said in 1945,
136:32 easily. Charlie Parker said in 1945, "They took jazz and made it swing. Made
136:35 "They took jazz and made it swing. Made it dable, safe, profitable, made it
136:38 it dable, safe, profitable, made it white. Bop is our music. They can't have
136:42 white. Bop is our music. They can't have it. It's too hard, too black, too. Let
136:46 it. It's too hard, too black, too. Let them try." And white America did try.
136:49 them try." And white America did try. White musicians studied BBOP. Some
136:52 White musicians studied BBOP. Some mastered it, but they never dominated it
136:54 mastered it, but they never dominated it the way they dominated swing. Bbop
136:57 the way they dominated swing. Bbop remained predominantly black music
136:59 remained predominantly black music created and performed by black artists
137:01 created and performed by black artists for audiences that appreciated its
137:03 for audiences that appreciated its complexity. It was a reclaiming of
137:05 complexity. It was a reclaiming of cultural ownership. But here's the
137:07 cultural ownership. But here's the contradiction. While Bbop was emerging
137:10 contradiction. While Bbop was emerging as artistically radical music, the
137:12 as artistically radical music, the economic structure of Harlem hadn't
137:14 economic structure of Harlem hadn't changed at all. Bumpy Johnson still ran
137:17 changed at all. Bumpy Johnson still ran the policy racket for the mob. The clubs
137:19 the policy racket for the mob. The clubs were still mobcrolled. The money was
137:22 were still mobcrolled. The money was still being extracted and Bumpy was
137:24 still being extracted and Bumpy was getting older. By 1945, he was 40. He'd
137:28 getting older. By 1945, he was 40. He'd been in the game for 25 years. He'd been
137:31 been in the game for 25 years. He'd been shot three times, stabbed twice,
137:34 shot three times, stabbed twice, arrested more than 30 times. He'd served
137:37 arrested more than 30 times. He'd served 5 years in Singh in the 1920s. He was
137:40 5 years in Singh in the 1920s. He was tired. But he also understood something.
137:43 tired. But he also understood something. The game was changing. The war had
137:46 The game was changing. The war had radicalized black consciousness. The
137:48 radicalized black consciousness. The soldiers coming home weren't going to
137:50 soldiers coming home weren't going to accept the same old arrangements. They'd
137:53 accept the same old arrangements. They'd fought for democracy overseas. They
137:55 fought for democracy overseas. They wanted democracy at home. The civil
137:58 wanted democracy at home. The civil rights movement was beginning. It
138:00 rights movement was beginning. It wouldn't explode until the 1950s and60s.
138:03 wouldn't explode until the 1950s and60s. But the seeds were planted in the 1940s.
138:06 But the seeds were planted in the 1940s. And Bumpy, who was many things but never
138:08 And Bumpy, who was many things but never stupid, understood that the era of black
138:11 stupid, understood that the era of black gangsters working for the white mob was
138:13 gangsters working for the white mob was ending. Not immediately, not violently,
138:16 ending. Not immediately, not violently, but ending. The next generation would
138:19 but ending. The next generation would demand more, would demand independence.
138:22 demand more, would demand independence. In 1946, Bumpy Johnson met a young man
138:25 In 1946, Bumpy Johnson met a young man from North Carolina named Frank Lucas.
138:28 from North Carolina named Frank Lucas. Lucas was 16, had just arrived in
138:30 Lucas was 16, had just arrived in Harlem, fleeing a murder charge back
138:32 Harlem, fleeing a murder charge back home. He'd killed a white man who'd
138:34 home. He'd killed a white man who'd assaulted his cousin. Lucas was smart,
138:37 assaulted his cousin. Lucas was smart, fearless, and ambitious. Everything
138:39 fearless, and ambitious. Everything Bumpy had been 20 years earlier. Bumpy
138:42 Bumpy had been 20 years earlier. Bumpy took him under his wing, taught him the
138:44 took him under his wing, taught him the game, but more importantly, taught him
138:47 game, but more importantly, taught him to think strategically.
138:49 to think strategically. "Don't just learn how to run policy,"
138:51 "Don't just learn how to run policy," Bumpy told Lucas. "Learn why the system
138:54 Bumpy told Lucas. "Learn why the system works the way it does. Learn who
138:56 works the way it does. Learn who benefits, who loses, where the power
138:59 benefits, who loses, where the power actually sits. Because someday, maybe
139:01 actually sits. Because someday, maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours,
139:04 not in my lifetime, but in yours, there's going to be an opportunity to
139:05 there's going to be an opportunity to break free. And when that opportunity
139:07 break free. And when that opportunity comes, you need to be ready." Frank
139:10 comes, you need to be ready." Frank Lucas listened and 20 years later he'd
139:13 Lucas listened and 20 years later he'd try to do exactly what Bumpy predicted.
139:16 try to do exactly what Bumpy predicted. Break free from the mob, build an
139:18 Break free from the mob, build an independent operation, prove that black
139:20 independent operation, prove that black gangsters didn't need white
139:22 gangsters didn't need white partnerships. But we're getting ahead of
139:24 partnerships. But we're getting ahead of ourselves again. In 1945,
139:28 ourselves again. In 1945, the war ended. 500,000 black soldiers
139:31 the war ended. 500,000 black soldiers came home. The Renaissance was long
139:34 came home. The Renaissance was long dead. The Cotton Club was a tourist
139:36 dead. The Cotton Club was a tourist trap. The Seavoi was diminished. Smalls
139:40 trap. The Seavoi was diminished. Smalls Paradise was white-owned. The policy
139:42 Paradise was white-owned. The policy racket was mobc controlled. But Harlem
139:44 racket was mobc controlled. But Harlem itself, Harlem was alive, angry,
139:48 itself, Harlem was alive, angry, conscious of its power, and beginning to
139:50 conscious of its power, and beginning to demand change. The music had transformed
139:53 demand change. The music had transformed from swing to Bbop. The politics had
139:55 from swing to Bbop. The politics had transformed from accommodation to
139:57 transformed from accommodation to militancy. The economics were still
140:00 militancy. The economics were still extractive, but the community was no
140:02 extractive, but the community was no longer ignorant of the extraction.
140:04 longer ignorant of the extraction. Everyone knew the mob was taking
140:06 Everyone knew the mob was taking millions. Everyone knew white America
140:09 millions. Everyone knew white America had stolen black culture. Everyone knew
140:12 had stolen black culture. Everyone knew the system was designed to keep black
140:14 the system was designed to keep black people poor while profiting from their
140:15 people poor while profiting from their creativity. What nobody knew yet was
140:18 creativity. What nobody knew yet was what to do about it. The civil rights
140:21 what to do about it. The civil rights movement would provide one answer. Legal
140:24 movement would provide one answer. Legal resistance, non-violent protest,
140:26 resistance, non-violent protest, integration. But the criminal underworld
140:29 integration. But the criminal underworld would provide another answer, one that
140:31 would provide another answer, one that Frank Lucas would attempt in the 1960s.
140:34 Frank Lucas would attempt in the 1960s. economic independence through illegal
140:36 economic independence through illegal means. Both answers would fail in
140:39 means. Both answers would fail in different ways. But in 1945, those
140:42 different ways. But in 1945, those failures were decades away. For now,
140:45 failures were decades away. For now, Harlem was in twilight. Not dead, but
140:48 Harlem was in twilight. Not dead, but not alive in the way it had been.
140:51 not alive in the way it had been. Waiting for the next transformation,
140:53 Waiting for the next transformation, waiting for the next generation to try
140:55 waiting for the next generation to try again. And sitting in a brownstone on
140:58 again. And sitting in a brownstone on Edgecomb Avenue, counting money from
141:00 Edgecomb Avenue, counting money from policy banks that funneled wealth out of
141:02 policy banks that funneled wealth out of Harlem as fast as it came in, Bumpy
141:05 Harlem as fast as it came in, Bumpy Johnson was thinking about the future,
141:07 Johnson was thinking about the future, about Frank Lucas, the teenage kid he
141:09 about Frank Lucas, the teenage kid he was mentoring, about whether the dream
141:11 was mentoring, about whether the dream of independence, the dream Holstein and
141:14 of independence, the dream Holstein and St. Clair had died for, whether that
141:16 St. Clair had died for, whether that dream was possible at all. He didn't
141:19 dream was possible at all. He didn't know. But he knew this. The game had
141:22 know. But he knew this. The game had changed. The Renaissance was over. And
141:25 changed. The Renaissance was over. And whatever came next, it would be
141:27 whatever came next, it would be different from anything that had come
141:29 different from anything that had come before. The golden age was dead. The war
141:32 before. The golden age was dead. The war had ended. And Harlem was about to enter
141:35 had ended. And Harlem was about to enter its longest, darkest period. the 1950s
141:39 its longest, darkest period. the 1950s and60s when heroin would replace policy
141:42 and60s when heroin would replace policy as the primary criminal enterprise. When
141:44 as the primary criminal enterprise. When the community would tear itself apart,
141:46 the community would tear itself apart, when the dream of black cultural and
141:48 when the dream of black cultural and economic power would come closer than
141:51 economic power would come closer than ever before and fail more
141:53 ever before and fail more catastrophically than anyone imagined.
141:56 catastrophically than anyone imagined. But that's act five. For now, in 1945,
142:00 But that's act five. For now, in 1945, there was just exhaustion, survival, and
142:03 there was just exhaustion, survival, and the faint hope that maybe somehow the
142:06 the faint hope that maybe somehow the next generation would figure out what
142:07 next generation would figure out what this one couldn't. How to be free.
142:11 this one couldn't. How to be free. Let's talk about what happened to the
142:13 Let's talk about what happened to the culture the Harlem Renaissance created.
142:16 culture the Harlem Renaissance created. Not what happened in Harlem. We've
142:18 Not what happened in Harlem. We've covered that. What happened to jazz, to
142:21 covered that. What happened to jazz, to swing, to the lindy hop, to the entire
142:23 swing, to the lindy hop, to the entire aesthetic vocabulary that black Harlem
142:26 aesthetic vocabulary that black Harlem invented between 1920 and 1940?
142:30 invented between 1920 and 1940? What happened when white America took
142:32 What happened when white America took it? Benny Goodman plays Carnegie Hall,
142:36 it? Benny Goodman plays Carnegie Hall, first jazz concert ever performed at
142:38 first jazz concert ever performed at that venue. Carnegie Hall, the temple of
142:40 that venue. Carnegie Hall, the temple of high culture, where classical music and
142:43 high culture, where classical music and opera belonged. And here's Benny
142:45 opera belonged. And here's Benny Goodman, a white Jewish clarinetist from
142:47 Goodman, a white Jewish clarinetist from Chicago playing jazz. And America calls
142:50 Chicago playing jazz. And America calls it historic. The band includes two black
142:53 it historic. The band includes two black musicians, Teddy Wilson on piano and
142:56 musicians, Teddy Wilson on piano and Lionel Hampton on vibrophone. They're
142:58 Lionel Hampton on vibrophone. They're listed as special guests, not full band
143:01 listed as special guests, not full band members. And the arrangements they're
143:04 members. And the arrangements they're playing, written by Fletcher Henderson,
143:06 playing, written by Fletcher Henderson, a black band leader and arranger who'd
143:08 a black band leader and arranger who'd been creating sophisticated swing music
143:10 been creating sophisticated swing music since 1924.
143:12 since 1924. Fletcher Henderson was the architect of
143:14 Fletcher Henderson was the architect of big band swing. He invented the call and
143:17 big band swing. He invented the call and response patterns, the section playing,
143:20 response patterns, the section playing, the orchestral arrangements that made
143:21 the orchestral arrangements that made swing music work. But Henderson couldn't
143:24 swing music work. But Henderson couldn't keep his own band together. Financial
143:26 keep his own band together. Financial problems, bad management, racism in the
143:29 problems, bad management, racism in the booking industry. In 1935, he started
143:33 booking industry. In 1935, he started selling his arrangements to Benny
143:34 selling his arrangements to Benny Goodman. $50 per arrangement, sometimes
143:37 Goodman. $50 per arrangement, sometimes a hundred. Goodman took those
143:39 a hundred. Goodman took those arrangements and became the king of
143:41 arrangements and became the king of swing. By 1938, he was making $200,000
143:46 swing. By 1938, he was making $200,000 per year. Was Goodman stealing? Not
143:48 per year. Was Goodman stealing? Not technically. He paid for the
143:50 technically. He paid for the arrangements. He employed black
143:52 arrangements. He employed black musicians when most white band leaders
143:54 musicians when most white band leaders wouldn't. He acknowledged his debt to
143:57 wouldn't. He acknowledged his debt to Henderson publicly, but he also made 40
144:00 Henderson publicly, but he also made 40 times more money than the black genius
144:02 times more money than the black genius who created his sound. And America
144:04 who created his sound. And America crowned him king of a music form black
144:06 crowned him king of a music form black people had invented. This pattern
144:08 people had invented. This pattern repeated everywhere. Count Bassy, Duke
144:12 repeated everywhere. Count Bassy, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Jimmy Lunsford.
144:15 Ellington, Chick Webb, Jimmy Lunsford. These were the greatest band leaders in
144:17 These were the greatest band leaders in jazz. All black, all brilliant. They
144:21 jazz. All black, all brilliant. They made decent livingings by black
144:22 made decent livingings by black standards. Then you had white band
144:24 standards. Then you had white band leaders. Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy
144:27 leaders. Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Arty Shaw. They made fortunes,
144:31 Dorsey, Arty Shaw. They made fortunes, not because they were better musicians.
144:33 not because they were better musicians. They weren't. because they were white
144:35 They weren't. because they were white and America wanted jazz without the
144:37 and America wanted jazz without the black faces. Glenn Miller's In the Mood,
144:40 black faces. Glenn Miller's In the Mood, the most famous swing recording of all
144:42 the most famous swing recording of all time, was adapted from a Joe Garland
144:44 time, was adapted from a Joe Garland arrangement that had been recorded by
144:46 arrangement that had been recorded by Edgar Hayes, a black band leader, two
144:49 Edgar Hayes, a black band leader, two years earlier. Miller heard it, bought
144:51 years earlier. Miller heard it, bought the rights for cheap, recorded it, and
144:54 the rights for cheap, recorded it, and it became his signature song. Hayes made
144:56 it became his signature song. Hayes made nothing from it. Tommy Dorsey's entire
144:59 nothing from it. Tommy Dorsey's entire style was copied from listening to black
145:01 style was copied from listening to black trombonists in Harlem clubs. He'd sit in
145:04 trombonists in Harlem clubs. He'd sit in the audience at the Seavoi at Smalls
145:06 the audience at the Seavoi at Smalls Paradise watching and learning. Then
145:09 Paradise watching and learning. Then he'd take what he learned, perform it
145:11 he'd take what he learned, perform it for white audiences, and get credited as
145:14 for white audiences, and get credited as innovative. And the Lindy Hop, the dance
145:17 innovative. And the Lindy Hop, the dance that was invented by black dancers at
145:19 that was invented by black dancers at the Seavoi, that Frankie Manning and
145:22 the Seavoi, that Frankie Manning and Norma Miller perfected that represented
145:24 Norma Miller perfected that represented the pinnacle of American vernacular
145:26 the pinnacle of American vernacular dance.
145:28 dance. White America renamed it, called it
145:30 White America renamed it, called it Jitterbug when white dancers performed
145:32 Jitterbug when white dancers performed it, sanitized it, removed the African
145:35 it, sanitized it, removed the African movement vocabulary, made it safe, and
145:38 movement vocabulary, made it safe, and then Hollywood put it in movies with all
145:40 then Hollywood put it in movies with all white casts performing a whitewashed
145:42 white casts performing a whitewashed version of a black art form. By 1940,
145:46 version of a black art form. By 1940, swing music was America's music. It was
145:49 swing music was America's music. It was played on every radio station, performed
145:51 played on every radio station, performed in every dance hall, beloved by
145:53 in every dance hall, beloved by millions, and most white Americans had
145:56 millions, and most white Americans had no idea it came from black culture. They
145:59 no idea it came from black culture. They thought it was just American music,
146:01 thought it was just American music, universal, race neutral. Duke Ellington
146:05 universal, race neutral. Duke Ellington tried to fight this eraser. In 1941, he
146:08 tried to fight this eraser. In 1941, he premiered Black, Brown, and Beige, a
146:11 premiered Black, Brown, and Beige, a 45minute orchestral suite about black
146:13 45minute orchestral suite about black American history. He performed it at
146:15 American history. He performed it at Carnegie Hall following Goodman's
146:17 Carnegie Hall following Goodman's precedent. The piece was brilliant,
146:20 precedent. The piece was brilliant, ambitious, unapologetically black. It
146:23 ambitious, unapologetically black. It told the story from slavery to the
146:24 told the story from slavery to the present through music. White critics
146:27 present through music. White critics destroyed it. They said jazz shouldn't
146:30 destroyed it. They said jazz shouldn't be political, shouldn't be historical,
146:32 be political, shouldn't be historical, should just entertain.
146:35 should just entertain. One critic wrote, "Duke Ellington should
146:37 One critic wrote, "Duke Ellington should stick to threeinut dance numbers and
146:39 stick to threeinut dance numbers and leave serious composition to serious
146:41 leave serious composition to serious composers." Translation: Black musicians
146:45 composers." Translation: Black musicians should entertain us, not educate us.
146:48 should entertain us, not educate us. Should make us dance, not think.
146:51 Should make us dance, not think. Ellington was devastated. He spent the
146:53 Ellington was devastated. He spent the rest of his life trying to prove jazz
146:55 rest of his life trying to prove jazz was serious art, not just entertainment.
146:58 was serious art, not just entertainment. He succeeded artistically. His sacred
147:00 He succeeded artistically. His sacred concerts, his suits, his compositions
147:03 concerts, his suits, his compositions are now recognized as American
147:04 are now recognized as American masterpieces.
147:06 masterpieces. But during his lifetime, white America
147:08 But during his lifetime, white America wanted him to play Take the A train and
147:11 wanted him to play Take the A train and smile. When he tried to do more, they
147:14 smile. When he tried to do more, they told him to know his place. That's the
147:16 told him to know his place. That's the theft. Not just the music itself, though
147:19 theft. Not just the music itself, though that was stolen, the context, the
147:22 that was stolen, the context, the meaning, the humanity of the creators.
147:26 meaning, the humanity of the creators. White America took black music and
147:28 White America took black music and divorced it from black people. Took the
147:31 divorced it from black people. Took the culture and erased the community that
147:33 culture and erased the community that created it. And it wasn't just music.
147:36 created it. And it wasn't just music. Language, fashion, dance, attitude.
147:40 Language, fashion, dance, attitude. Everything Harlem created became
147:42 Everything Harlem created became American culture, stripped of its
147:44 American culture, stripped of its origins. The slang invented in Harlem
147:47 origins. The slang invented in Harlem rent parties, cool, hip, dig it, the
147:51 rent parties, cool, hip, dig it, the man. These became universal American
147:54 man. These became universal American expressions. Nobody remembers they came
147:56 expressions. Nobody remembers they came from black jazz musicians. The fashion,
148:00 from black jazz musicians. The fashion, zoot suits, wide-brimmed hats, the whole
148:03 zoot suits, wide-brimmed hats, the whole aesthetic of 1940s cool, created by
148:06 aesthetic of 1940s cool, created by black Harlemmites, then adopted by white
148:08 black Harlemmites, then adopted by white hipsters who thought they'd invented it.
148:10 hipsters who thought they'd invented it. The attitude, the knowing irony, the
148:13 The attitude, the knowing irony, the detachment, the performance of
148:15 detachment, the performance of confidence, that's black survival
148:18 confidence, that's black survival strategy in a hostile world turned into
148:20 strategy in a hostile world turned into American masculinity without
148:22 American masculinity without acknowledgement of its origins. Harlem
148:24 acknowledgement of its origins. Harlem created modern American culture. Jazz,
148:27 created modern American culture. Jazz, swing, bbop, the entire musical
148:30 swing, bbop, the entire musical foundation, the Lindy hop, which became
148:33 foundation, the Lindy hop, which became the basis for all American social
148:35 the basis for all American social dancing, the speak easy aesthetic that
148:37 dancing, the speak easy aesthetic that defined prohibition, the nightclub
148:40 defined prohibition, the nightclub culture that became standard
148:41 culture that became standard entertainment, the integration of music,
148:44 entertainment, the integration of music, dance, and nightlife as a unified
148:46 dance, and nightlife as a unified experience. All of it came from Harlem
148:48 experience. All of it came from Harlem between 1920 and 1940. and white America
148:52 between 1920 and 1940. and white America took it, removed the black faces and
148:55 took it, removed the black faces and sold it back to itself as American
148:57 sold it back to itself as American culture. No attribution, no
149:00 culture. No attribution, no compensation, no acknowledgement.
149:03 compensation, no acknowledgement. In 1960, a white sociologist named
149:06 In 1960, a white sociologist named Norman Mailor wrote an essay called The
149:08 Norman Mailor wrote an essay called The White Negro about how white bohemians
149:11 White Negro about how white bohemians were adopting black cultural styles. He
149:13 were adopting black cultural styles. He described it as white people becoming
149:16 described it as white people becoming hip by imitating black coolness. The
149:19 hip by imitating black coolness. The essay is fascinating because it
149:21 essay is fascinating because it acknowledges the theft while celebrating
149:22 acknowledges the theft while celebrating the thieves. Mailor understood that
149:25 the thieves. Mailor understood that white hipsters were appropriating black
149:27 white hipsters were appropriating black culture and he thought that was good.
149:30 culture and he thought that was good. Thought it was progressive. Never once
149:32 Thought it was progressive. Never once suggested that black people should be
149:34 suggested that black people should be compensated or credited. That's the
149:36 compensated or credited. That's the final insult. Not just stealing the
149:39 final insult. Not just stealing the culture, but being praised for it. Not
149:42 culture, but being praised for it. Not just taking the music, but being called
149:44 just taking the music, but being called innovative for performing it. not just
149:47 innovative for performing it. not just erasing black creators, but denying the
149:50 erasing black creators, but denying the erasure ever happened. Langston Hughes
149:53 erasure ever happened. Langston Hughes wrote about this in 1951. He published a
149:56 wrote about this in 1951. He published a short story called Who's Passing for
149:58 short story called Who's Passing for Who. The story is about racial passing,
150:02 Who. The story is about racial passing, light-skinned black people presenting as
150:04 light-skinned black people presenting as white. But Hughes uses it as a metaphor
150:06 white. But Hughes uses it as a metaphor for cultural passing. He writes, "White
150:09 for cultural passing. He writes, "White people can pass for colored musically
150:11 people can pass for colored musically and artistically, but colored folks
150:14 and artistically, but colored folks can't pass for white economically or
150:16 can't pass for white economically or socially. We create the culture. They
150:19 socially. We create the culture. They reap the profits." That sentence
150:21 reap the profits." That sentence captures everything. Black people
150:23 captures everything. Black people created the Harlem Renaissance, created
150:26 created the Harlem Renaissance, created jazz, swing, Bbop, created the Lindy
150:29 jazz, swing, Bbop, created the Lindy Hop, the nightclub aesthetic, modern
150:32 Hop, the nightclub aesthetic, modern American cool. And white people profited
150:34 American cool. And white people profited from it. Not just financially, though
150:37 from it. Not just financially, though they did culturally. White America built
150:40 they did culturally. White America built its cultural identity on black
150:42 its cultural identity on black creativity while denying black humanity.
150:45 creativity while denying black humanity. And here's the thing, this wasn't
150:47 And here's the thing, this wasn't accidental. This was systematic. The
150:51 accidental. This was systematic. The recording industry was white-owned. The
150:53 recording industry was white-owned. The radio stations were white controlled.
150:55 radio stations were white controlled. The booking agencies, the clubs, the
150:58 The booking agencies, the clubs, the distribution networks, all white. Black
151:01 distribution networks, all white. Black musicians could create, but they
151:03 musicians could create, but they couldn't control the means of production
151:05 couldn't control the means of production or distribution. So, white
151:07 or distribution. So, white intermediaries took the music, packaged
151:09 intermediaries took the music, packaged it, sold it, and kept most of the
151:12 it, sold it, and kept most of the profit. Duke Ellington's compositions
151:14 profit. Duke Ellington's compositions are worth hundreds of millions of
151:16 are worth hundreds of millions of dollars today. His catalog generates
151:19 dollars today. His catalog generates ongoing royalties from performances,
151:21 ongoing royalties from performances, recordings, films, and commercials.
151:24 recordings, films, and commercials. During his lifetime, he made maybe 10
151:26 During his lifetime, he made maybe 10 million total, spread across 50 years.
151:30 million total, spread across 50 years. That's not nothing, but it's a fraction
151:32 That's not nothing, but it's a fraction of what his music generated. The rest
151:34 of what his music generated. The rest went to record companies, publishers,
151:36 went to record companies, publishers, distributors, white-owned, white
151:39 distributors, white-owned, white controlled. The same for every black
151:42 controlled. The same for every black musician from that era. Bessie Smith
151:44 musician from that era. Bessie Smith died in 1937 after a car accident. She
151:47 died in 1937 after a car accident. She bled to death because the first hospital
151:49 bled to death because the first hospital refused to treat a black woman. She'd
151:51 refused to treat a black woman. She'd sold millions of records, made Columbia
151:53 sold millions of records, made Columbia records rich. She died without adequate
151:56 records rich. She died without adequate medical care and was buried in an
151:58 medical care and was buried in an unmarked grave that stayed unmarked for
152:00 unmarked grave that stayed unmarked for 33 years until Janice Joplain and
152:03 33 years until Janice Joplain and Januita Green paid for a headstone in
152:06 Januita Green paid for a headstone in 1970.
152:07 1970. That's what the theft meant. Not just
152:09 That's what the theft meant. Not just abstract cultural appropriation.
152:11 abstract cultural appropriation. Concrete material consequences. Black
152:14 Concrete material consequences. Black artists dying in poverty while their
152:16 artists dying in poverty while their music made white executives wealthy.
152:19 music made white executives wealthy. Zoran Neil Hursten died in 1960 in a
152:22 Zoran Neil Hursten died in 1960 in a welfare home in Florida. She was working
152:24 welfare home in Florida. She was working as a maid in her final years. She'd
152:27 as a maid in her final years. She'd published novels, folklore collections,
152:30 published novels, folklore collections, anthropological research. She'd created
152:32 anthropological research. She'd created foundational works of American
152:34 foundational works of American literature, and she died cleaning
152:36 literature, and she died cleaning someone else's house for pennies. The
152:38 someone else's house for pennies. The Harlem Renaissance created permanent
152:40 Harlem Renaissance created permanent contributions to American culture and
152:42 contributions to American culture and the people who created it were
152:43 the people who created it were discarded, used up, thrown away,
152:46 discarded, used up, thrown away, forgotten, and their creations were
152:49 forgotten, and their creations were repackaged as universal American art
152:51 repackaged as universal American art with no black fingerprints visible.
152:54 with no black fingerprints visible. By 1960, jazz was taught in
152:57 By 1960, jazz was taught in conservatories. The Lindy Hop was
152:59 conservatories. The Lindy Hop was performed by professional dance
153:01 performed by professional dance companies. Swing was nostalgic music
153:04 companies. Swing was nostalgic music played by white musicians for aging
153:06 played by white musicians for aging white audiences.
153:07 white audiences. and the black Harlemmites who'd invented
153:09 and the black Harlemmites who'd invented all of it, either dead, forgotten, or
153:12 all of it, either dead, forgotten, or marginalized in their own art form.
153:15 marginalized in their own art form. That's the cost of the theft, not just
153:17 That's the cost of the theft, not just the money, though the money mattered.
153:20 the money, though the money mattered. The erasure, the systematic removal of
153:22 The erasure, the systematic removal of black people from the culture they
153:24 black people from the culture they created, and the psychological impact of
153:27 created, and the psychological impact of watching your creativity stolen,
153:28 watching your creativity stolen, watching white people profit from it,
153:30 watching white people profit from it, and being told you should be grateful
153:32 and being told you should be grateful they're paying attention at all. Duke
153:35 they're paying attention at all. Duke Ellington never stopped fighting this
153:38 Ellington never stopped fighting this until he died in 1974. He insisted that
153:41 until he died in 1974. He insisted that jazz was black music, that its history
153:44 jazz was black music, that its history mattered, that the creators deserved
153:46 mattered, that the creators deserved recognition. He won that argument
153:49 recognition. He won that argument eventually. Now, we acknowledge jazz's
153:51 eventually. Now, we acknowledge jazz's black origins. But he didn't live to see
153:54 black origins. But he didn't live to see it widely accepted. And most of the
153:56 it widely accepted. And most of the Renaissance creators didn't get even
153:58 Renaissance creators didn't get even that. They died in obscurity, their
154:01 that. They died in obscurity, their contributions forgotten, their names
154:03 contributions forgotten, their names unknown, the culture they created lives
154:06 unknown, the culture they created lives on. They don't. That's what theft means
154:10 on. They don't. That's what theft means when we're talking about cultural theft,
154:13 when we're talking about cultural theft, not metaphor, actual erasure, actual
154:16 not metaphor, actual erasure, actual poverty, actual death while your
154:19 poverty, actual death while your creations make others wealthy. The
154:21 creations make others wealthy. The Harlem Renaissance built American
154:23 Harlem Renaissance built American culture, and America responded by taking
154:26 culture, and America responded by taking everything and giving back nothing.
154:29 everything and giving back nothing. But let's talk about the other cost. The
154:31 But let's talk about the other cost. The one nobody wants to discuss. Not the
154:34 one nobody wants to discuss. Not the theft by white America. That's external.
154:37 theft by white America. That's external. That's oppression. Let's talk about the
154:40 That's oppression. Let's talk about the internal cost. What the criminal
154:43 internal cost. What the criminal underworld did to Harlem itself. The
154:45 underworld did to Harlem itself. The policy racket. Let's do the math
154:48 policy racket. Let's do the math honestly. Between 1920 and 1950, the
154:52 honestly. Between 1920 and 1950, the numbers game in Harlem processed
154:54 numbers game in Harlem processed approximately $300 million in bets.
154:58 approximately $300 million in bets. That's in period currency. In today's
155:00 That's in period currency. In today's money, $6 billion. $6 billion in bets
155:04 money, $6 billion. $6 billion in bets placed by the poorest black neighborhood
155:06 placed by the poorest black neighborhood in America over 30 years. The payout
155:09 in America over 30 years. The payout rate was 60%. So of that 6 billion, 3.6
155:13 rate was 60%. So of that 6 billion, 3.6 billion was paid out in winnings. The
155:16 billion was paid out in winnings. The remaining 2.4 billion, that was profit
155:19 remaining 2.4 billion, that was profit divided between operators, the mob,
155:22 divided between operators, the mob, politicians, police. Where did that 2.4
155:25 politicians, police. Where did that 2.4 4 billion come from domestic workers
155:28 4 billion come from domestic workers betting their last nickel. Factory
155:30 betting their last nickel. Factory workers betting their lunch money.
155:32 workers betting their lunch money. Mothers betting the grocery budget.
155:35 Mothers betting the grocery budget. People betting money they needed for
155:37 People betting money they needed for food, rent, medicine. Betting because
155:40 food, rent, medicine. Betting because they were desperate, because they had no
155:43 they were desperate, because they had no other path to financial stability.
155:45 other path to financial stability. Because the system was designed to keep
155:47 Because the system was designed to keep them poor and policy offered the only
155:50 them poor and policy offered the only hope of escape. And the math was rigged
155:53 hope of escape. And the math was rigged against them. True odds of hitting a
155:55 against them. True odds of hitting a three-digit number, one in a thousand.
155:58 three-digit number, one in a thousand. Payout, 600 to1. The house kept 40% of
156:02 Payout, 600 to1. The house kept 40% of every dollar bet, guaranteed. If you
156:04 every dollar bet, guaranteed. If you played policy long-term, you lost.
156:07 played policy long-term, you lost. Mathematically impossible to win. But
156:10 Mathematically impossible to win. But desperation doesn't understand
156:12 desperation doesn't understand mathematics. Let's be specific about
156:14 mathematics. Let's be specific about what that meant. 1935, the height of the
156:19 what that meant. 1935, the height of the depression. Average Harlem family
156:21 depression. Average Harlem family income, $32 per month. Average rent, $60
156:26 income, $32 per month. Average rent, $60 per month. The math didn't work. You
156:29 per month. The math didn't work. You couldn't survive legally. So, people
156:31 couldn't survive legally. So, people played policy. On average, Harlem
156:34 played policy. On average, Harlem families spent $5 per month on policy
156:36 families spent $5 per month on policy bets. That's 15% of their income. Money
156:40 bets. That's 15% of their income. Money that could have been saved, invested,
156:42 that could have been saved, invested, used for food or clothing or education.
156:45 used for food or clothing or education. Multiply that across 30 years. The
156:48 Multiply that across 30 years. The average Harlem family over a generation
156:51 average Harlem family over a generation bet $1,800 on policy. Lost $1,000 net.
156:56 bet $1,800 on policy. Lost $1,000 net. That's $24,000 in today's money. Lost
156:59 That's $24,000 in today's money. Lost money gone into the pockets of gangsters
157:03 money gone into the pockets of gangsters and the mob. Now multiply across the
157:06 and the mob. Now multiply across the whole community. 50,000 families betting
157:09 whole community. 50,000 families betting for 30 years. $50 million in net losses.
157:14 for 30 years. $50 million in net losses. 1.2 billion today. That's wealth that
157:17 1.2 billion today. That's wealth that could have built businesses, funded
157:19 could have built businesses, funded education, created generational
157:21 education, created generational stability. Instead, it disappeared into
157:24 stability. Instead, it disappeared into the policy machine. And here's the part
157:26 the policy machine. And here's the part that makes it even worse. Some of that
157:28 that makes it even worse. Some of that money funded the Renaissance.
157:31 money funded the Renaissance. Casper Holstein's grants to Langston
157:33 Casper Holstein's grants to Langston Hughes. That was policy money. the dark
157:36 Hughes. That was policy money. the dark tower parties, policy money, the
157:39 tower parties, policy money, the nightclubs, the culture, the art, all
157:43 nightclubs, the culture, the art, all funded by extracting wealth from the
157:44 funded by extracting wealth from the poorest people in Harlem. So, we're
157:47 poorest people in Harlem. So, we're faced with an impossible question. Was
157:50 faced with an impossible question. Was it worth it? Would we trade the Harlem
157:52 it worth it? Would we trade the Harlem Renaissance for those $50 million
157:54 Renaissance for those $50 million staying in workingclass pockets? Would
157:57 staying in workingclass pockets? Would we give up Langston Hughes's poetry if
157:59 we give up Langston Hughes's poetry if it meant families could afford food?
158:01 it meant families could afford food? Would we sacrifice Duke Ellington's
158:03 Would we sacrifice Duke Ellington's music if it meant children could have
158:05 music if it meant children could have shoes? There's no good answer. Both
158:08 shoes? There's no good answer. Both things are true simultaneously. The
158:10 things are true simultaneously. The Renaissance was beautiful,
158:12 Renaissance was beautiful, revolutionary, important, and it was
158:15 revolutionary, important, and it was funded by exploitation. You can't
158:18 funded by exploitation. You can't separate them. Casper Holstein knew
158:20 separate them. Casper Holstein knew this. We talked about his justification
158:23 this. We talked about his justification earlier. If I shut down tomorrow,
158:25 earlier. If I shut down tomorrow, someone else would take my place. That's
158:28 someone else would take my place. That's true, but it's also evasion. Yes,
158:31 true, but it's also evasion. Yes, someone else would have run policy, but
158:33 someone else would have run policy, but Holstein chose to be that someone chose
158:36 Holstein chose to be that someone chose to take the money. Chose to fund artists
158:39 to take the money. Chose to fund artists with money extracted from people who
158:40 with money extracted from people who couldn't afford to lose it. Does his
158:43 couldn't afford to lose it. Does his funding of black culture offset the
158:44 funding of black culture offset the harm? Maybe partially. Langston Hughes's
158:48 harm? Maybe partially. Langston Hughes's poetry has value beyond dollars. His
158:51 poetry has value beyond dollars. His words have inspired generations, given
158:54 words have inspired generations, given voice to black experience, changed
158:56 voice to black experience, changed American literature. That wouldn't have
158:58 American literature. That wouldn't have happened without Holstein's money. But
159:00 happened without Holstein's money. But it also wouldn't have happened at the
159:02 it also wouldn't have happened at the cost it did. And the Renaissance wasn't
159:05 cost it did. And the Renaissance wasn't the only thing the policy money funded.
159:07 the only thing the policy money funded. It funded violence. Between 1930 and
159:11 It funded violence. Between 1930 and 1940, at least 300 people were murdered
159:14 1940, at least 300 people were murdered in policy related violence. Collectors
159:17 in policy related violence. Collectors who skimmed, runners who switched sides,
159:20 who skimmed, runners who switched sides, rivals who competed, innocent people
159:23 rivals who competed, innocent people caught in crossfire. 300 families
159:25 caught in crossfire. 300 families destroyed because of an illegal lottery.
159:28 destroyed because of an illegal lottery. It funded police corruption,
159:30 It funded police corruption, 20,000 per month to the NYPD. Remember,
159:34 20,000 per month to the NYPD. Remember, that's 5 million over the 30-year
159:36 that's 5 million over the 30-year period. $5 million that could have gone
159:39 period. $5 million that could have gone to community services that instead went
159:42 to community services that instead went to cops who brutalized black
159:44 to cops who brutalized black Harlemmites. Paid to look the other way
159:46 Harlemmites. Paid to look the other way on policy, but also to look the other
159:48 on policy, but also to look the other way on everything else. Police
159:51 way on everything else. Police corruption enabled by policy money meant
159:54 corruption enabled by policy money meant justice was impossible in Harlem. It
159:57 justice was impossible in Harlem. It funded political corruption. Jimmy Hines
160:00 funded political corruption. Jimmy Hines took 500,000 per year from Schultz. Over
160:03 took 500,000 per year from Schultz. Over a decade, $5 million.
160:06 a decade, $5 million. That money bought elections, controlled
160:08 That money bought elections, controlled judges, shaped policy, and it meant
160:10 judges, shaped policy, and it meant Harlem had no real political
160:12 Harlem had no real political representation.
160:14 representation. Ferdinand Q. Morton was Tamy's puppet,
160:17 Ferdinand Q. Morton was Tamy's puppet, delivering votes in exchange for
160:18 delivering votes in exchange for patronage while the real power stayed
160:20 patronage while the real power stayed downtown with white bosses who profited
160:23 downtown with white bosses who profited from Harlem's exploitation. And it
160:25 from Harlem's exploitation. And it created a culture of crime as
160:26 created a culture of crime as entrepreneurship for young black men
160:29 entrepreneurship for young black men growing up in 1930s. Harlem, what were
160:32 growing up in 1930s. Harlem, what were the role models? Not doctors. There were
160:35 the role models? Not doctors. There were some, but they were rare. Not lawyers,
160:39 some, but they were rare. Not lawyers, even rarer. Not businessmen. Black
160:42 even rarer. Not businessmen. Black businesses were systematically denied
160:45 businesses were systematically denied loans and licenses. The visible success
160:48 loans and licenses. The visible success stories were gangsters. Bumpy Johnson in
160:51 stories were gangsters. Bumpy Johnson in a three-piece suit driving a Cadillac,
160:53 a three-piece suit driving a Cadillac, living on Sugar Hill. Casper Holstein
160:56 living on Sugar Hill. Casper Holstein throwing parties with champagne.
160:57 throwing parties with champagne. Stephanie St. Clair wearing furs and
160:59 Stephanie St. Clair wearing furs and jewelry. These were the people who had
161:01 jewelry. These were the people who had money, power, respect. And they got it
161:04 money, power, respect. And they got it through crime. So the next generation
161:07 through crime. So the next generation learned crime pays. Legal work doesn't.
161:11 learned crime pays. Legal work doesn't. The system is rigged. The only path to
161:13 The system is rigged. The only path to success is outside the law. That lesson
161:16 success is outside the law. That lesson would haunt Harlem for generations.
161:19 would haunt Harlem for generations. Frank Lucas, who Bumpy mentored in the
161:21 Frank Lucas, who Bumpy mentored in the 1940s, absorbed that lesson completely.
161:24 1940s, absorbed that lesson completely. He saw Bumpy living well through illegal
161:26 He saw Bumpy living well through illegal means and thought, "This is the path."
161:29 means and thought, "This is the path." In the 1960s, Lucas would build a heroin
161:32 In the 1960s, Lucas would build a heroin empire that devastated Harlem far worse
161:35 empire that devastated Harlem far worse than policy ever did. And he justified
161:37 than policy ever did. And he justified it the same way Holstein and Bumpy did.
161:40 it the same way Holstein and Bumpy did. The system doesn't give us legal
161:42 The system doesn't give us legal options. This is survival.
161:45 options. This is survival. But heroin wasn't policy. Policy was
161:48 But heroin wasn't policy. Policy was gambling. Harmful, exploitative, but not
161:51 gambling. Harmful, exploitative, but not immediately deadly. Heroin killed,
161:54 immediately deadly. Heroin killed, destroyed lives, destroyed families,
161:57 destroyed lives, destroyed families, destroyed entire communities. and the
162:00 destroyed entire communities. and the infrastructure for distributing heroin
162:03 infrastructure for distributing heroin built by the policy racket, the
162:05 built by the policy racket, the networks, the street level dealers, the
162:08 networks, the street level dealers, the corruption, the acceptance of
162:09 corruption, the acceptance of criminality, all of it established by
162:12 criminality, all of it established by policy, repurposed for narcotics.
162:15 policy, repurposed for narcotics. By 1970, Harlem was a war zone. Heroin
162:19 By 1970, Harlem was a war zone. Heroin addiction rates over 50% in some
162:21 addiction rates over 50% in some neighborhoods. Crime skyrocketing,
162:24 neighborhoods. Crime skyrocketing, families torn apart. And if you trace
162:26 families torn apart. And if you trace the lineage, it goes back to the policy
162:28 the lineage, it goes back to the policy racket of the 1920s and30s. Not directly
162:32 racket of the 1920s and30s. Not directly policy didn't cause heroin, but it
162:34 policy didn't cause heroin, but it normalized criminal economics, created
162:37 normalized criminal economics, created the infrastructure, taught generations
162:39 the infrastructure, taught generations that illegal enterprise was acceptable.
162:42 that illegal enterprise was acceptable. That's the cost nobody wants to
162:44 That's the cost nobody wants to calculate. Not just the money extracted
162:46 calculate. Not just the money extracted from poor families. Not just the
162:48 from poor families. Not just the murders, the corruption, the
162:50 murders, the corruption, the exploitation, the long-term cultural
162:53 exploitation, the long-term cultural cost, the normalization of criminality,
162:56 cost, the normalization of criminality, the destruction of legal
162:58 the destruction of legal entrepreneurship.
163:00 entrepreneurship. The message sent to every young black
163:02 The message sent to every young black person that the only path to success was
163:04 person that the only path to success was outside the law. And for what? Some
163:07 outside the law. And for what? Some great art, some cultural contributions,
163:11 great art, some cultural contributions, some moments of joy and beauty and
163:13 some moments of joy and beauty and transcendence. Were they worth it? I
163:16 transcendence. Were they worth it? I don't know.
163:17 don't know. Nobody knows. There's no way to
163:20 Nobody knows. There's no way to calculate that equation. You can't weigh
163:22 calculate that equation. You can't weigh Langston Hughes's poems against a
163:24 Langston Hughes's poems against a thousand families losing their grocery
163:26 thousand families losing their grocery money. You can't balance Duke
163:28 money. You can't balance Duke Ellington's music against the 300 murder
163:30 Ellington's music against the 300 murder victims. You can't quantify the Harlem
163:33 victims. You can't quantify the Harlem Renaissance's cultural impact versus the
163:35 Renaissance's cultural impact versus the decades of criminal infrastructure that
163:37 decades of criminal infrastructure that followed. Both things are true. The
163:40 followed. Both things are true. The Renaissance was magnificent and it was
163:42 Renaissance was magnificent and it was built on bones. So, what are we left
163:44 built on bones. So, what are we left with? What did the Harlem Renaissance
163:47 with? What did the Harlem Renaissance underworld actually build that lasted?
163:50 underworld actually build that lasted? Let's start with the culture. The
163:52 Let's start with the culture. The permanent contributions that nobody can
163:54 permanent contributions that nobody can take away, even if they stole credit for
163:57 take away, even if they stole credit for them. Jazz, America's only original art
164:00 them. Jazz, America's only original art form. Invented in New Orleans, perfected
164:03 form. Invented in New Orleans, perfected in Chicago, brought to maturity in
164:05 in Chicago, brought to maturity in Harlem. Duke Ellington, Chick Webb,
164:08 Harlem. Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Count Baisy. They created sophisticated
164:10 Count Baisy. They created sophisticated orchestral music that rivals anything in
164:13 orchestral music that rivals anything in the classical tradition. Bbop came next.
164:16 the classical tradition. Bbop came next. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie,
164:19 Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Theonius Monk. Then cool jazz, hardbop,
164:23 Theonius Monk. Then cool jazz, hardbop, modal jazz, free jazz, fusion. An
164:27 modal jazz, free jazz, fusion. An unbroken line of innovation, all rooted
164:30 unbroken line of innovation, all rooted in what was created in Harlem between
164:31 in what was created in Harlem between 1920 and 1945.
164:34 1920 and 1945. Jazz is now taught in conservatories
164:36 Jazz is now taught in conservatories worldwide, studied by musiccologists,
164:39 worldwide, studied by musiccologists, performed in concert halls. It's
164:41 performed in concert halls. It's recognized as serious art, as American
164:44 recognized as serious art, as American classical music, and it all came from
164:46 classical music, and it all came from rent parties, speak easys, and
164:49 rent parties, speak easys, and mobcrolled nightclubs in Harlem. The
164:51 mobcrolled nightclubs in Harlem. The Lindy Hop, the first American vernacular
164:54 Lindy Hop, the first American vernacular dance form to be recognized globally as
164:57 dance form to be recognized globally as an art. It's taught in dance schools on
165:00 an art. It's taught in dance schools on every continent. There are international
165:03 every continent. There are international competitions, professional companies,
165:05 competitions, professional companies, historical preservation efforts. Frankie
165:08 historical preservation efforts. Frankie Manning, who invented the aerial moves
165:10 Manning, who invented the aerial moves in 1936, lived to see the Lindy Hop
165:13 in 1936, lived to see the Lindy Hop revived in the 1980s and '90s. He taught
165:17 revived in the 1980s and '90s. He taught thousands of dancers before dying in
165:19 thousands of dancers before dying in 2009 at age 94. The dance he created at
165:22 2009 at age 94. The dance he created at the Seavoi is now permanent. The
165:25 the Seavoi is now permanent. The literature Langston Hughes, Zora Neil
165:28 literature Langston Hughes, Zora Neil Hursten, Claude McCay, County Cullen.
165:32 Hursten, Claude McCay, County Cullen. Their works are taught in schools,
165:34 Their works are taught in schools, anthologized, studied, celebrated.
165:37 anthologized, studied, celebrated. Hughes is recognized as one of America's
165:39 Hughes is recognized as one of America's greatest poets. Hursten's Their Eyes
165:42 greatest poets. Hursten's Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered a
165:44 Were Watching God is considered a masterpiece of American fiction. The
165:47 masterpiece of American fiction. The literature survives even if the writers
165:49 literature survives even if the writers died in poverty. The nightclub culture.
165:53 died in poverty. The nightclub culture. Before Harlem, nightife was saloons and
165:55 Before Harlem, nightife was saloons and brothel. After Harlem, nightife meant
165:58 brothel. After Harlem, nightife meant live music, dancing, food, drinks,
166:02 live music, dancing, food, drinks, entertainment, all integrated into one
166:04 entertainment, all integrated into one experience. That model became standard.
166:08 experience. That model became standard. Every nightclub in America, every music
166:11 Every nightclub in America, every music venue, every entertainment space is
166:13 venue, every entertainment space is descended from what Harlem created in
166:15 descended from what Harlem created in the 1920s. The aesthetic of cool, the
166:18 the 1920s. The aesthetic of cool, the detached confidence, the ironic
166:21 detached confidence, the ironic awareness, the performance of
166:22 awareness, the performance of effortlessness. That's Harlem. That's
166:26 effortlessness. That's Harlem. That's Duke Ellington in a tuxedo playing music
166:28 Duke Ellington in a tuxedo playing music that sounds easy but isn't. That's Billy
166:31 that sounds easy but isn't. That's Billy Holiday singing Heartbreak like it
166:33 Holiday singing Heartbreak like it doesn't hurt. That's Miles Davis turning
166:35 doesn't hurt. That's Miles Davis turning his back on the audience because he
166:37 his back on the audience because he doesn't need their approval. Cool is
166:40 doesn't need their approval. Cool is black culture created in Harlem, now
166:42 black culture created in Harlem, now universal. Those are the permanent
166:44 universal. Those are the permanent cultural contributions. Real, lasting,
166:48 cultural contributions. Real, lasting, important. American culture is
166:51 important. American culture is unimaginable without them. But there are
166:54 unimaginable without them. But there are other legacies, darker ones. The
166:56 other legacies, darker ones. The criminal infrastructure. The policy
166:58 criminal infrastructure. The policy racket never went away. It just got
167:01 racket never went away. It just got legalized. New York State created a
167:04 legalized. New York State created a legal lottery in 1967.
167:06 legal lottery in 1967. Same game, same odds, same mathematical
167:10 Same game, same odds, same mathematical structure, except now the state runs it.
167:13 structure, except now the state runs it. and the profits fund education instead
167:15 and the profits fund education instead of gangsters. Or at least that's the
167:17 of gangsters. Or at least that's the theory. In practice, lotteryies still
167:20 theory. In practice, lotteryies still target poor neighborhoods, still extract
167:22 target poor neighborhoods, still extract wealth from people who can't afford it,
167:24 wealth from people who can't afford it, still sell false hope. The state just
167:27 still sell false hope. The state just took over the operation Holstein and St.
167:29 took over the operation Holstein and St. Clare had built the political machine.
167:32 Clare had built the political machine. Tam Hall is dead, but the model
167:34 Tam Hall is dead, but the model survives. Urban political machines that
167:37 survives. Urban political machines that deliver services in exchange for votes,
167:39 deliver services in exchange for votes, that operate through patronage and
167:41 that operate through patronage and corruption, that maintain power by
167:43 corruption, that maintain power by controlling just enough resources to
167:45 controlling just enough resources to keep people dependent. That's descended
167:48 keep people dependent. That's descended directly from the Jimmy Hines model.
167:50 directly from the Jimmy Hines model. It's how city politics still works in
167:53 It's how city politics still works in many places. The normalization of
167:55 many places. The normalization of criminality, the idea that illegal
167:58 criminality, the idea that illegal enterprise is acceptable, even
168:00 enterprise is acceptable, even admirable, if the system doesn't offer
168:02 admirable, if the system doesn't offer legal alternatives. That's Harlem's
168:05 legal alternatives. That's Harlem's legacy, too. And it's complicated
168:07 legacy, too. And it's complicated because there's truth in it. The system
168:09 because there's truth in it. The system was rigged. Legal options were blocked.
168:12 was rigged. Legal options were blocked. Survival required illegal means. But it
168:15 Survival required illegal means. But it also created generations who saw crime
168:17 also created generations who saw crime as first resort, not last resort, who
168:22 as first resort, not last resort, who saw violence as normal, who never tried
168:24 saw violence as normal, who never tried legal entrepreneurship because they'd
168:26 legal entrepreneurship because they'd learned it was pointless. The
168:28 learned it was pointless. The glorification of gangsters. Every mob
168:31 glorification of gangsters. Every mob movie, every gangster rap album, every
168:33 movie, every gangster rap album, every celebration of outlaw culture that's
168:36 celebration of outlaw culture that's descended from Harlem. From the image of
168:38 descended from Harlem. From the image of Bumpy Johnson in his suit, Stephanie St.
168:41 Bumpy Johnson in his suit, Stephanie St. Clair in her furs, Casper Holstein
168:43 Clair in her furs, Casper Holstein throwing parties, the gangster as folk
168:46 throwing parties, the gangster as folk hero, as community protector, as Robin
168:49 hero, as community protector, as Robin Hood figure. That mythology started in
168:52 Hood figure. That mythology started in Harlem, spread through black culture,
168:54 Harlem, spread through black culture, then became universal American
168:56 then became universal American mythology. And it's done incalculable
168:59 mythology. And it's done incalculable harm by teaching young people that crime
169:02 harm by teaching young people that crime is glamorous, that violence is
169:04 is glamorous, that violence is respectable, that exploitation is
169:06 respectable, that exploitation is acceptable if you're oppressed. So
169:09 acceptable if you're oppressed. So what's the final balance? What did the
169:11 what's the final balance? What did the Harlem Renaissance underworld build? It
169:14 Harlem Renaissance underworld build? It built American culture. Jazz, swing,
169:17 built American culture. Jazz, swing, bop, the lindy hop, modern nightife,
169:21 bop, the lindy hop, modern nightife, cool as an aesthetic, the entire
169:23 cool as an aesthetic, the entire foundation of American entertainment.
169:25 foundation of American entertainment. That's not hyperbole. That's documented
169:28 That's not hyperbole. That's documented history. It built criminal
169:30 history. It built criminal infrastructure that both harmed and
169:32 infrastructure that both harmed and served the community. The policy racket
169:35 served the community. The policy racket extracted wealth but also employed
169:37 extracted wealth but also employed thousands. The nightclubs exploited
169:40 thousands. The nightclubs exploited artists but also gave them platforms.
169:43 artists but also gave them platforms. The gangsters corrupted politics but
169:45 The gangsters corrupted politics but also provided some services the state
169:47 also provided some services the state refused to provide. It built a mythology
169:50 refused to provide. It built a mythology that's both true and false. True. Black
169:54 that's both true and false. True. Black people created something extraordinary
169:56 people created something extraordinary under impossible circumstances.
169:59 under impossible circumstances. False. Crime was the only way. Violence
170:02 False. Crime was the only way. Violence was necessary. Exploitation was
170:04 was necessary. Exploitation was justified. It built a legacy we're still
170:07 justified. It built a legacy we're still grappling with. Still trying to honor
170:10 grappling with. Still trying to honor the culture while acknowledging the
170:11 the culture while acknowledging the cost. Still trying to celebrate the
170:14 cost. Still trying to celebrate the artists while recognizing the
170:15 artists while recognizing the exploitation.
170:17 exploitation. Still trying to understand how something
170:19 Still trying to understand how something so beautiful could come from something
170:21 so beautiful could come from something so destructive. Here's what I believe
170:24 so destructive. Here's what I believe after examining this history. The Harlem
170:26 after examining this history. The Harlem Renaissance wasn't possible without the
170:28 Renaissance wasn't possible without the criminal underworld. The money had to
170:31 criminal underworld. The money had to come from somewhere, and legal sources
170:33 come from somewhere, and legal sources weren't available. White patrons
170:36 weren't available. White patrons demanded stereotypes. Black gangsters
170:38 demanded stereotypes. Black gangsters offered money with fewer strings
170:40 offered money with fewer strings attached. The artists took what they
170:42 attached. The artists took what they could get and created miracles. But
170:45 could get and created miracles. But also, the cost was devastating and
170:47 also, the cost was devastating and ongoing. Families destroyed, wealth
170:50 ongoing. Families destroyed, wealth extracted, violence normalized, criminal
170:53 extracted, violence normalized, criminal infrastructure that enabled worse crimes
170:55 infrastructure that enabled worse crimes later, political corruption that
170:57 later, political corruption that prevented real reform, a culture that
171:00 prevented real reform, a culture that glorified illegality and made legal
171:02 glorified illegality and made legal success seem impossible.
171:05 success seem impossible. Both things are true. You can't say the
171:08 Both things are true. You can't say the Renaissance justified the crime. You
171:11 Renaissance justified the crime. You also can't say the crime negates the
171:13 also can't say the crime negates the culture. They're inseparable. the music,
171:16 culture. They're inseparable. the music, the literature, the dance, their real
171:19 the literature, the dance, their real contributions to human culture, and they
171:22 contributions to human culture, and they were built on exploitation, funded by
171:24 were built on exploitation, funded by desperation, made possible by
171:27 desperation, made possible by criminality.
171:28 criminality. Langston Hughes understood this. In his
171:31 Langston Hughes understood this. In his later years, he was asked about the
171:33 later years, he was asked about the Harlem Renaissance and whether it
171:35 Harlem Renaissance and whether it succeeded. His answer, "We created art
171:38 succeeded. His answer, "We created art that will outlive us. We also lived in
171:41 that will outlive us. We also lived in poverty, died in obscurity, and watched
171:44 poverty, died in obscurity, and watched white America steal everything we made.
171:48 white America steal everything we made. So, did we succeed? Yes and no. Both and
171:52 So, did we succeed? Yes and no. Both and neither. We did what we could with what
171:55 neither. We did what we could with what we had. History will judge whether it
171:58 we had. History will judge whether it was enough. That's the only honest
172:00 was enough. That's the only honest answer. The Harlem Renaissance
172:02 answer. The Harlem Renaissance underworld built something magnificent
172:05 underworld built something magnificent and terrible. Created beauty from
172:07 and terrible. Created beauty from ugliness, made art from crime, gave the
172:10 ugliness, made art from crime, gave the world jazz while taking from the poorest
172:12 world jazz while taking from the poorest people in America. And the legacy, it's
172:15 people in America. And the legacy, it's everything. American culture is the
172:18 everything. American culture is the legacy. Jazz, hip hop, rock, and roll, R
172:22 legacy. Jazz, hip hop, rock, and roll, R and B, all descended from Harlem. The
172:26 and B, all descended from Harlem. The nightclub, the concert venue, the music
172:28 nightclub, the concert venue, the music festival, all descended from the Cotton
172:31 festival, all descended from the Cotton Club and the Seavoy. Cool, swagger,
172:34 Club and the Seavoy. Cool, swagger, style, attitude, all descended from
172:36 style, attitude, all descended from Harlem gangsters and musicians who
172:38 Harlem gangsters and musicians who performed confidence they didn't always
172:40 performed confidence they didn't always feel. But also the war on drugs, the
172:44 feel. But also the war on drugs, the school to prison pipeline, the
172:46 school to prison pipeline, the glorification of gangster culture, the
172:48 glorification of gangster culture, the normalization of violence, the
172:50 normalization of violence, the destruction of urban communities. That's
172:53 destruction of urban communities. That's legacy, too. Not all of it traces to
172:55 legacy, too. Not all of it traces to Harlem, but some of it does. The
172:58 Harlem, but some of it does. The infrastructure was built there. The
173:00 infrastructure was built there. The mythology was created there. So when you
173:03 mythology was created there. So when you listen to jazz, when you dance, when you
173:06 listen to jazz, when you dance, when you consume any aspect of American
173:08 consume any aspect of American entertainment culture, you're
173:10 entertainment culture, you're experiencing the legacy of the Harlem
173:12 experiencing the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance underworld. The music that
173:14 Renaissance underworld. The music that came from rent parties where families
173:16 came from rent parties where families bet their last dollar. The dance that
173:19 bet their last dollar. The dance that came from the Seavoi funded by mob
173:21 came from the Seavoi funded by mob money. the cool that came from gangsters
173:23 money. the cool that came from gangsters trying to survive in a hostile world.
173:26 trying to survive in a hostile world. It's beautiful. It's terrible. It's both
173:29 It's beautiful. It's terrible. It's both and will never untangle them because
173:31 and will never untangle them because they're the same thing. The Harlem
173:34 they're the same thing. The Harlem Renaissance proved that black people
173:36 Renaissance proved that black people could create worldchanging culture under
173:38 could create worldchanging culture under any circumstances, even the most
173:40 any circumstances, even the most oppressive. It also proved that culture
173:43 oppressive. It also proved that culture alone doesn't free you, that creating
173:46 alone doesn't free you, that creating beauty doesn't end exploitation,
173:49 beauty doesn't end exploitation, that art doesn't pay the rent or feed
173:51 that art doesn't pay the rent or feed children or build generational wealth.
173:53 children or build generational wealth. The gangsters proved that black people
173:55 The gangsters proved that black people could build economic empires without
173:58 could build economic empires without white permission. They also proved that
174:00 white permission. They also proved that those empires couldn't be sustained,
174:03 those empires couldn't be sustained, couldn't be made legitimate, couldn't
174:05 couldn't be made legitimate, couldn't protect their communities from greater
174:07 protect their communities from greater forces. And the mob proved what we
174:10 forces. And the mob proved what we already knew, that white supremacy
174:12 already knew, that white supremacy adapts. When black people built their
174:15 adapts. When black people built their own economy, white gangsters took it
174:17 own economy, white gangsters took it over. When black people created their
174:20 over. When black people created their own culture, white performers
174:22 own culture, white performers appropriated it. When black people
174:24 appropriated it. When black people demanded respect, the system found new
174:26 demanded respect, the system found new ways to extract and exploit. That's the
174:30 ways to extract and exploit. That's the legacy. Triumph and tragedy, beauty and
174:33 legacy. Triumph and tragedy, beauty and exploitation, creation and theft, all
174:37 exploitation, creation and theft, all inseparable, all true, all permanent.
174:41 inseparable, all true, all permanent. Casper Holstein died in 1944, broke and
174:45 Casper Holstein died in 1944, broke and forgotten. Stephanie St. Clair died in
174:47 forgotten. Stephanie St. Clair died in 1969, bitter and alone. Onie Madden
174:51 1969, bitter and alone. Onie Madden retired to Arkansas, lived peacefully
174:54 retired to Arkansas, lived peacefully until 1965.
174:56 until 1965. Duke Ellington played until he died in
174:58 Duke Ellington played until he died in 1974.
175:00 1974. never stopped creating, never got the
175:02 never stopped creating, never got the recognition he deserved in his lifetime.
175:05 recognition he deserved in his lifetime. Langston Hughes died in 1967, celebrated
175:09 Langston Hughes died in 1967, celebrated as a great poet, never wealthy.
175:13 as a great poet, never wealthy. Zoranil Hursten died in 1960 working as
175:16 Zoranil Hursten died in 1960 working as a maid, buried in an unmarked grave. The
175:19 a maid, buried in an unmarked grave. The Seavoy Ballroom was demolished in 1958,
175:22 Seavoy Ballroom was demolished in 1958, torn down to build a housing project
175:24 torn down to build a housing project that still stands. There's a plaque on
175:26 that still stands. There's a plaque on the building now commemorating what was
175:28 the building now commemorating what was there. Tourists sometimes stop to read
175:31 there. Tourists sometimes stop to read it. Nobody dances. The Cotton Club
175:34 it. Nobody dances. The Cotton Club closed in 1940 when the building was
175:36 closed in 1940 when the building was demolished. It reopened in different
175:38 demolished. It reopened in different locations over the years. Each time a
175:40 locations over the years. Each time a pale imitation of what it had been. The
175:43 pale imitation of what it had been. The current Cotton Club opened in 1978 in
175:45 current Cotton Club opened in 1978 in Harlem has no connection to the original
175:48 Harlem has no connection to the original except the name. Smalls Paradise, closed
175:51 except the name. Smalls Paradise, closed in 1986.
175:53 in 1986. The building still exists. Houses a
175:55 The building still exists. Houses a church now. Nobody remembers. It was
175:58 church now. Nobody remembers. It was once the most important blackowned
175:59 once the most important blackowned nightclub in Harlem. The policy racket
176:02 nightclub in Harlem. The policy racket ended when the state took it over. The
176:04 ended when the state took it over. The numbers game is now the lottery,
176:06 numbers game is now the lottery, generating billions for state
176:08 generating billions for state governments, still targeting poor
176:10 governments, still targeting poor neighborhoods, still extracting wealth
176:12 neighborhoods, still extracting wealth from people who can't afford it. Same
176:14 from people who can't afford it. Same game, different owner. Harlem itself
176:17 game, different owner. Harlem itself still there, gentrifying now,
176:19 still there, gentrifying now, ironically. White people moving in,
176:22 ironically. White people moving in, paying high rents for the historical
176:23 paying high rents for the historical cache of living where the Renaissance
176:25 cache of living where the Renaissance happened. The black families who created
176:28 happened. The black families who created that culture, mostly displaced, priced
176:31 that culture, mostly displaced, priced out, scattered to the Bronx and Brooklyn
176:33 out, scattered to the Bronx and Brooklyn and beyond. That's the final irony.
176:36 and beyond. That's the final irony. Harlem created American culture, and
176:38 Harlem created American culture, and America is now erasing Harlem. The
176:41 America is now erasing Harlem. The neighborhood that gave the world jazz is
176:43 neighborhood that gave the world jazz is becoming a museum of its own history,
176:45 becoming a museum of its own history, inhabited by people with no connection
176:47 inhabited by people with no connection to what happened there. But the culture
176:49 to what happened there. But the culture survives, the music plays on. People
176:53 survives, the music plays on. People still dance the Lindy Hop. Students
176:56 still dance the Lindy Hop. Students still read Langston Hughes. Musicians
176:59 still read Langston Hughes. Musicians still study Duke Ellington. The culture
177:02 still study Duke Ellington. The culture outlived the people who created it.
177:04 outlived the people who created it. Outlived the neighborhood that birthed
177:06 Outlived the neighborhood that birthed it. Outlived the criminal underworld
177:08 it. Outlived the criminal underworld that funded it. And maybe that's enough.
177:12 that funded it. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's victory. The culture is
177:14 Maybe that's victory. The culture is permanent. The beauty is real. The art
177:17 permanent. The beauty is real. The art transcends its origins. Jazz doesn't
177:20 transcends its origins. Jazz doesn't belong to gangsters or the mob or even
177:22 belong to gangsters or the mob or even to Harlem anymore. It belongs to the
177:25 to Harlem anymore. It belongs to the world and the world is better for it.
177:28 world and the world is better for it. But we should remember the cost.
177:30 But we should remember the cost. Remember the families who lost their
177:32 Remember the families who lost their grocery money. Remember the musicians
177:34 grocery money. Remember the musicians who died in poverty. Remember the
177:37 who died in poverty. Remember the dancers whose artistry was stolen.
177:40 dancers whose artistry was stolen. Remember the writers who cleaned houses
177:42 Remember the writers who cleaned houses to survive. Remember that every
177:44 to survive. Remember that every beautiful thing came from ugly
177:46 beautiful thing came from ugly circumstances. That every triumph was
177:48 circumstances. That every triumph was paid for with sacrifice. That nothing
177:51 paid for with sacrifice. That nothing was free. They said black culture would
177:53 was free. They said black culture would never matter, that jazz was noise, that
177:57 never matter, that jazz was noise, that black performers were novelties, that
177:59 black performers were novelties, that Harlem was a slum with nothing to offer.
178:02 Harlem was a slum with nothing to offer. They were wrong. Harlem gave America its
178:05 They were wrong. Harlem gave America its culture, its music, its style, its soul.
178:09 culture, its music, its style, its soul. But the people who built that culture,
178:11 But the people who built that culture, they paid a terrible price. And the
178:14 they paid a terrible price. And the community that created it, it was
178:16 community that created it, it was destroyed in the process. That's the
178:19 destroyed in the process. That's the truth. both parts. The beauty and the
178:22 truth. both parts. The beauty and the cost. The triumph and the tragedy. The
178:26 cost. The triumph and the tragedy. The legacy we inherited and the bill that's
178:28 legacy we inherited and the bill that's still being paid. The Harlem Renaissance
178:32 still being paid. The Harlem Renaissance underworld built American culture and it
178:35 underworld built American culture and it destroyed itself in the process. Both
178:37 destroyed itself in the process. Both things are true. Both things matter. and
178:40 things are true. Both things matter. and we'll never be able to separate them
178:42 we'll never be able to separate them because they're the same story told from
178:45 because they're the same story told from different angles about people trying to
178:47 different angles about people trying to survive and create and build something
178:48 survive and create and build something that would outlast them. They succeeded.
178:52 that would outlast them. They succeeded. The culture is permanent. The cost was
178:54 The culture is permanent. The cost was devastating. And we're still living with
178:56 devastating. And we're still living with both. That's the legacy. That's what
178:59 both. That's the legacy. That's what they built. Everything.
