Born on October 31, 1905, in Charleston, South Carolina, was American crime boss in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson.
Due to a slight deformation of his skull, he had a bump on the back of his head, & was given the nickname “Bumpy” at a young age, & it stuck with him the rest of his life.
When Johnson was 10, his older brother Willie was accused of killing a white man.
Afraid of a possible lynch mob, his parents mortgaged their tiny home to raise money to send Willie up north, to live with relatives.
As Bumpy Johnson grew older, his parents worried about his short temper & insolence towards whites, & fearing a reprisal, Johnson’s parents moved most of their 7 children to Harlem, a haven for the Black community in the early 20th century, in 1919.
Once there, Johnson was sent to live with his older sister Mabel.
Because of his bumpy head, thick Southern accent, & short stature, Johnson was picked on by local children.
But this may be how his skills for a life of crime actually 1st developed: Instead of taking the hits & taunts, Johnson made a name for himself, as a fighter, who was not to be messed with.
Johnson dropped out of high school & began working unruly jobs, making money by pool hustling, selling newspapers, & sweeping the storefronts of restaurants, with his gang of friends.
This is how he met William “Bub” Hewlett, a gangster who took a liking to Johnson, when he refused to back off of Bub’s storefront territory.
Bub, who saw the boy’s potential and appreciated his boldness, invited him into the business of offering physical protection to the high-profile numbers bankers in Harlem.
Johnson then began working for him, & before long, Johnson became 1 of the most sought-after bodyguards in the neighborhood, which was the beginning of Bumpy’s life of crime.
Johnson’s criminal career soon flourished, as he graduated to armed robbery, extortion, & even pimping.
But he wasn’t able to avoid punishment & was in & out of reform schools & prisons for much of his 20s.
After serving 2 1/2 years on a grand larceny charge, Johnson got out of prison in 1932, with no money or occupation.
But once he was back on the streets of Harlem, he met numbers queen Madame Stephanie St. Clair. Johnson was an associate of St. Clair’s & he became her principal lieutenant in the 1930s.
At the time, St. Clair was the reigning queen of several criminal organizations across Harlem.
She was the leader of a local gang, the 40 Thieves, & was also a key investor in the numbers rackets in the neighborhood. St. Clair was certain that Johnson would be her perfect partner in crime.
She was impressed by his intelligence & the 2 quickly became fast friends, despite their 20-year age difference (though some biographers peg her as being only 10 years his senior).
He was her personal bodyguard, as well as her numbers runner & bookmaker. Johnson & St. Clair aimed to start a war against New York mob boss Dutch Schultz.
While she evaded the Mafia & waged war against Schultz & his men, the 26-year-old Johnson committed a series of crimes, including murder, at her request.
The fight resulted in more than 40 murders & several kidnappings.
As Johnson’s wife, Mayme, who married him in 1948, wrote in her biography of the crime boss, “Bumpy & his crew of 9 waged a guerrilla war of sorts, & picking off Dutch Schultz’s men was easy, since there were few other white men walking around Harlem during the day.
Eventually the fight on their end was lost, ending with a deal for Johnson. But these crimes did not end because of Johnson & his men.
Instead, Schultz was ultimately killed by orders from Lucky Luciano, the infamous head of the Italian Mafia in New York.
This resulted in Johnson & Luciano making a deal:
The Harlem bookmakers could retain their independence from the Italian mob, as long as they agreed to pass along a cut of their profits.
It wasn’t a perfect solution, & not everyone was happy, but at the same time the people of Harlem realized Bumpy had ended the war with no further losses, & had negotiated a peace with honor… & they realized that for the 1st time, a black man had stood up to the white mob, instead of just bowing down & going along to get along.
After this meeting, Johnson & Luciano met regularly to play chess, sometimes at Luciano’s favorite spot in front of the YMCA on 135th Street.
But St. Clair went her own way, steering clear of criminal activity, after serving time for the shooting of her con-man husband.
But she is said to have maintained the protection of Johnson, until his death.
With St. Clair out of the game, Bumpy Johnson was now the 1 & only true Godfather of Harlem, that meant anything that happened in the crime world of the neighborhood, had to 1st get his seal of approval.
As Mayme Johnson wrote, “If you wanted to do anything in Harlem, anything at all, you’d better stop & see Bumpy, because he ran the place. Want to open a number spot on the Avenue? Go see Bumpy.
Thinking about converting your brownstone into a speakeasy? Check with Bumpy 1st.” & if anyone didn’t come to see Bumpy 1st, they paid the price.
Perhaps few paid that price as dearly as his rival Ulysses Rollins. As 1 chilling excerpt from Johnson’s biography reads:
Bumpy spotted Rollins. He pulled out a knife & jumped on Rollins, & the 2 men rolled around on the floor for a few moments before Bumpy stood up & straightened his tie.
Rollins remained on the floor, his face & body badly gashed, & 1 of his eyeballs hanging from the socket, by ligaments.
Bumpy calmly stepped over the man, picked up a menu & said he suddenly had a taste for spaghetti and meatballs.
In 1952, Johnson's activities were reported in the celebrity people section of Jet. That same year, Johnson was sentenced to 15 years in prison, for a drug conspiracy conviction, related to heroin.
2 years later, Jet reported in its crime section, that Johnson began his sentence, after losing an appeal.
He served the majority of that sentence at Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay, California as inmate No. 1117, & was released in 1963 on parole. Johnson was arrested more than 40 times & served 2 prison terms, for narcotics-related charges.
Upon his return to New York City in 1963, after serving his time in Alcatraz, Johnson was met with an impromptu parade.
The whole neighborhood wanted to welcome the Harlem Godfather back home.
In December 1965, Johnson staged a sit-down strike in a police station, refusing to leave, as a protest against their continued surveillance.
He was charged with "refusal to leave a police station" but was acquitted by a judge.
For more than 30 years, Bumpy Johnson was famous for being 1 of New York City’s most revered & feared crime bosses.
His wife called him the “Harlem Godfather,” & for good reason.
Known for ruling Harlem with an iron fist, he dealt with anyone who dared challenge him in a brutal fashion.
Johnson was also known for being a gentleman who was always willing to help out the less fortunate members of his community.
Johnson was also a fashionable man of the Harlem Renaissance.
Known for his love of poetry, he got some of his poems published in Harlem magazines. & he had affairs with New York celebrities, such as the editor of Vanity Fair, Helen Lawrenson, & the singer/actress Lena Horne.
He wasn’t a typical gangster,” wrote Frank Lucas, a notorious drug trafficker in Harlem in the 1960s & ’70s.
He worked in the streets, but he wasn’t of the streets. He was refined & classy, more like a businessman, with a legitimate career, than most people in the underworld.
I could tell by looking at him, that he was a lot different from the people I saw in the streets.
In addition, to his garnered reputation as a fashionable man about town, he also rubbed elbows with celebrities like Billie Holiday & Sugar Ray Robinson.
Whether it was celebrities, historical luminaries like Malcolm X, or everyday Harlemites, Bumpy Johnson was beloved, perhaps even more than he was feared. Johnson also had a soft side.
Some even compared him to Robin Hood because of the way he used his money & power to help the impoverished communities in his neighborhood.
He delivered gifts & meals to his neighbors in Harlem & even supplied turkey dinners on Thanksgiving & hosted a Christmas party every year.
As his wife noted, he was known to lecture younger generations about studying academics instead of crime, although he “always maintained a sense of humor about his brushes with the law.
Johnson was under a federal indictment for drug conspiracy, when he died of congestive heart failure on July 7, 1968, at the age of 62.
He was at Wells Restaurant in Harlem shortly before 2 a.m., & the waitress had just served him coffee, a chicken leg, & hominy grits, when he fell over clutching his chest.
He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City. Thousands of people attended Johnson’s funeral, including dozens of uniformed police officers who were stationed on the surrounding rooftops, shotguns in hand.
They must have thought that Bumpy was going to get up from the casket & start raising Hell.
