On Cassette: Frank Marshall Davis 5

Frank Marshall Davis reads two poems: "To a Young Man" and "Giles Johnson, Ph.D," about a highly educated African-American who died of starvation.

This leads to a discussion of the plight of educated blacks during the Depression. Many porters had college degrees.  He recalls that Claude Barnett, founder of the Associated Negro Press, a Tuskegee graduate, made a living selling images of the Black Madonna to the Polish community in Chicago.

Davis is questioned about life in Prohibition-Era Chicago and the place of African-Americans in the underworld.  According to Davis, the policy market (numbers racket) was controlled by 
blacks while booze, bars and prostitution were controlled by organized crime.

Davis remembers his own brush with the mob as well as the FBI while covering a corruption case for the Gary Indiana American in 1929.  An African-American alderman, A.B. Whitlock, served as a source in his reporting.  The FBI threatened Davis with a subpoena and the mob threatened his life.  Davis put out a story that he was taking a job in Philadelphia while he actually moved to Manhattan, Kansas.