African-American organized crime

African American organized crime
Founded	Late 19th century
Founding location	United States
Years active	Late 19th century–present
Territory	Active in most United States metropolitan areas
Ethnicity	African American
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, robbery, contract killing, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, murder, prostitution

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migration of African Americans from the Southern United States to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling (e.g. the numbers racket), speakeasies and were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses in African American neighborhoods were operated by African Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.