9. Harlem’s Greatest Crime Boss
Harlem’s most feared criminal kingpin from 1930 until his death in 1968 was Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson. Born in South Carolina in 1905, he got his nickname from a bump in the back of his head. When he was ten, Bumpy’s older brother killed a white man and fled to the north to escape a lynch mob.
Bumpy’s temper and refusal to abide by the day’s racial codes, particularly the deference to whites part, made his parents fear that he would end up killing somebody or get lynched. So at age fourteen, he was sent to live with a sister in Harlem.