Black Mafia Family Motown Mafia Eddie Jackson to Big Meech

Demetrios big Meech Flenory is the most dynamic and well-known american-born gangster since John Gotti NOSSA and we can't be stuck I don't see nobody stylist he'd known to come after a seagull some people use a folk hero of sorts it is respect from other inmates in the federal prison system where he is currently in the middle of a 30-year sentence is such that he is often put into the hole who transferred from prison to prison because Department of Corrections officials who fear his power to organize other inmates my documentary Motown mafia about the Eddie Jackson organization in Detroit from the late 60s to the late 70s is a look back to the players of another time that made the streets of Detroit what they were passion spired big Meech do you deny flatly that you are in any way tied in with the illegal drug would you care to reveal just what your business holdings are how you've acquired this wealth well if I tell you that did you know my business big Meech is a product of Detroit and he's influenced American culture like no criminal and recent times and now 50 cent is bringing his story to television Motown mafia will give you an insight into the city and the people that laid the groundwork for dimitra's big Meech Flenory he was so influential in urban culture today no nobody I'd never do this again 1973 the Detroit Free Press is front page for claims dope kingpins get away with they had names like Jesse James Pretty Ricky the black Drake and mr. clean two of the 12 men listed as Detroit's biggest heroin dealers were next-door neighbors and in reality they were the two largest heroin dealers in Detroit dwarfing the other men on the list Eddie the fat man Jackson charismatic son of a pool hall owner and his chief Lou kortnee the Field Marshal Brown a former city bus driver had built an empire on a par with men like Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas of New York but theirs was a very different and in many ways more sophisticated operation and Barnes and Lucas's based on family ties and finesse more than murder and mayhem they truly were the Motown mafia and the saga of Eddie Jackson Courtney brown and their families stretched from the 1960s and into the present day starting in 1969 Eddie Jackson and built a tape inner circle of lieutenants like Charles Rudolf Russell Clayton Ronald 5-volt Garrett Black Butch and his right-hand man Courtney brown all of them had grown up together in Detroit's old black bottom in Paradise Valley neighborhoods forming an unbreakable foundation for their soon to come heroin Empire [Music] [Music] I came to Detroit from Alabama in the late 50s so when you looked at black bottom you looked at musicians but you also looked at more you had a spirit of great entertainment [Music] the saloons and nightclubs that once made paradise valleys Hastings Street famous around the country are long gone now replaced by urban renewal and shining new stadiums but when Eddie Jackson and his crew were growing up it was the heart of a vibrant community a lot of black folks were there and they needed to they needed the very essentials that most communities need they needed a good housing they need to be able to maintain those houses they need an employment they need social relationships all of that took place and black bottom during this time you could leave your doors open then a young boy growing up in the Black Bottom and we talked about neighborhoods and the good old days that was a neighborhood when they talked about leaving your door open and the lady down the street or the man out you go whoop you for doing something wrong you will go out if you were Caucasian you will party in other parts of Detroit but after midnight you really wanted to have a party you really wanted to eat good we can't down a black bottom and the since lessness of crime didn't exist they weren't going to rob you they enjoyed I met Eddie Jackson he live around the corner my sister used to rent his father Eddie Jackson and Courtney brown first met in the late 40s when they were kids and formed a fast bond so Eddie had to be at least five or six and I had to be least ten they father used to didn't let him go anywhere unless Courtney took her you know so he looked up to court Eddie Jackson's father fled the South in the 1920s possibly after some trouble with the law and became a prominent businessman in Paradise Valley the audience needs to understand the significance of black entrepreneurship that was not considered simply a doctor or a dentist that there were businessmen that his father was a very successful businessman he's one of the few black he couldn't sell liquor but he had been wine license back then Coast was doing the war you came to Detroit from Hot Springs Arkansas he was a different guy down there but he changed his name he had killed someone you have black men were independent like mr. Jackson and others who come into the community they ran legitimate businesses but sometimes they also ran like the numbers business but a Lincoln Continental would push but one of which was unheard of 1947-1948 made his fortune at the beginning of his fortune selling a homemade liquor put that into real estate while Paradise Valley was relatively safe in the 1950s there was a thriving but well controlled underground economy in effect now you also had your red-light district so there was a great hypocracy also devilish drug addicts 10 there was alcoholism and all gambling and all the rest of it but as kids we must know what era we're not beholder come into town you had strong prostitution so I'm speaking of white businessmen white factory workers and others will come over to the house and he'll repute so black Baumann was a spiritual a social enactment more simply than just economic even though we was poor and it was hard times I always think pleasantly you know back from that time it all balanced out very well and then suddenly it got blown up by the early 60s Paradise Valley and black bottom were fast becoming memories as urban renewal cleared the area Eddie and his brother Elijah took over their father's pool hall when the elder Jackson died Charles Rudolph joined the military and Courtney brown got married started a family and became just another working-class guy in the ultimate blue-collar City then we got buried in 1961 my daughter was born it later on that year Christmas my son was born three years three days later on 20:57 1964 tried driving the bus a dsr little did they know Detroit's fortunes were about to take a turn for the worse but Eddie Jackson's fortunes were about to take off the city had started to slide but you couldn't see it yet it was just barely beginning to go down I don't think you can ignore the social levies that broke in 67 that I mean they were coming all along but once that ride broke then the social norms and the parameters changed immensely the Detroit riot of 1967 was by far the worst to hit the country during that time and was the final nail in the coffin of Paradise Valley governor the state of Michigan I do hereby officially request the immediate deployment of federal troops into Michigan with state and local authorities and reestablishing law order the city of Detroit the city had gone from the land of opportunity to a nightmare of unemployment and Blake then the heroin used it the heroin is so strong over in the Orient you can't snort it you can't shoot they were smoking guys came back with a habit the the local drug couldn't support it when Eddie Jackson's father died he left his sons Eddie and Elijah a substantial inheritance but by 1969 the money was long gone thanks to the brothers penchant for the good life Eddie went to work in an auto plant but was injured his Shawn company won't pay me say you got a pretty good understanding of the siege of once you've read these papers is a seat Eddie enlisted his childhood buddy Courtney to help him receive a disability settlement and used the proceeds to make his first foray into the heroin game he gave me $800 Danny said he turns to me and said Courtney yeah I'm going into drug business I say is you crazy I say would you know about drugs Eddie and fans you can make a lot of money I'm the original as far as selling drugs Eddie Jackson I'm the first guy that ever did Nancy Dale Kincaid at the time Eddie was just hustling around the pool room you know and in hustling crap games and he went and bought other stuff and put it in the building across from the currency they all went to selling it which I don't see it again for another couple of months I comes back down there and he tells me that the guys and ran off with his money in he broke again but I feel this income tax out so I feel his income tax out he went back into business again guys ran ran scams on us Sam and buddy they used to have they used to sell the weight down in Nevada so Eddie thinking he under the impression he found a quarter puke oh he didn't 2:54 it's not pure it's mixed job Sam so men see they'll be struggling selling this you know Eddie kept at it parlaying his income tax return into another small low this time he started making money I was visiting Eddie once and he had a guy over his house was a heroin dealer Janna El Dorado a guy named Youngblood you Smitley was snorting some heroin and I'm just looking at him hard and Eddie hunched me and said don't look at the man like you crazy oh this guy had a grocery store drove El Dorado I was real sharp he was he was dealing drugs because I was only helping on cap up dollar caps needs to call up any cabs while the Italian mafia still dominated the heroin trade in Detroit by the late 60s black dealers were striking out on their own chief among them was Henry marzetta now in my research we go back to the 50s and found out that heroin was there you start talking about him reminds that that was really the first urban godfather here in Detroit who was a police officer and then became the V man in drugs but he wasn't the only one he was kicked off the police force and I believe 1956 or 57 for shaking down numbers operators in Detroit as well as drug dealers and purveyors I know I kneel upon Lord I knew all oh he's my vet name was into murder and kidnapping and I'll let as a police officer everything you learned about the drug game and now he was gonna apply it to himself becoming a godfather I was giving money as a young man on Washington Boulevard by Henry mozzie and I Duncan who was a major player and I was in the I was bedazzled by Mars Eddie was learning how shoes yeah the black fleet was 1965 black Fleetwood Cadillac that I thought the prettiest car in the world and he gave me money for school and that's what he said the money wasn't for me to go in here clever and Italian Nick he gave me that money he said and I expect for you to go and use this for school nothing else Eddie Jackson's meteoric rise in the dope game came when he met a shadowy figure in Detroit's underworld John Classen Lizette head today but actually flexin was the guy who he only had to wait the Italian mafia around here in Detroit had really been the primary wholesalers dating back to Prohibition you had men like Giovanni Papa John Pratt seola and Raphael Jimmy Q or Jimmy the goon ah Serrano mr. qua Serrano as well as mr. pretty Ola had very very solid ties over in Sicily as well as ties into the French Connection protects me had met a connect on Oak Park some Italian class and was being fed top-quality heroin juice and the mustache Norma a remnant of Detroit's infamous Jewish purple game he was getting some of the best dope in the city no question about it this territory was always recognized nationally as not just a hub for Detroit Italians but a hub for national Italians to get their drugs so we're scuffling and stuffing with it you know and we did this for like four five months in 69 Eddie Jackson finally caught a break a well-known junkie in Paradise Valley by the name of box claimed he could hook Eddie up with someone big but see he was a just another average guy man a it happened in no Plex first name box hey man give me a blow I'm sick hey I said man you ain't done what you say don't worry about it man no big man don't worry about it who was this guy you Tommy John Claxton man you and your junky Edel I know him he's just bought a house in Palmer Park cost $40,000 that's a man ain't no nigga got $40,000 so show enough he didn't know Claxton took Katie out there and he came back with some wood some Jam I'll look at the pack I figure sugar flour I said what is that you say that's dope I say man a person pay me for this he said yeah they start capping up two giant I'm fascinated cuz I'd never seen heroin or cocaine in my life 30 years I've never seen it and as I said what'd he do he's 80 covering up these penny Catherine II sell them for a dollar piece with Eddie now being supplied by John Classen his operation took off and soon Eddie could be seen riding the streets in a brand-new red convertible Cadillac I was working at a gas station on Gratiot in Madison it used to come through with them Cadillacs and stuff you stand with your knowing every black guy you understand wanting to drive a Cadillac I just tell Eddie that means I'm your host with it is it man you know I can't trust it with you because you know Stan you know your mom would kill me Eddie come flying around the corner in the 1969 red Cadillac convertible brand-new San Mateo Reid I know we're forget it because we have went out to the car dealership I don't Grand River and he had picked that car out when we were first starting I was like Manson to make that kind of money to buy a Cadillac do you know I because I'm not thinking that deep but he is and when I came home he had that Cadillac get in the car I said not getting in the car stolen enlarge and they had brother laughs and no.8 he just bought it at coffee kinda late for $6,900 I see $6,900 yeah he paid cash for it one said he hooked that attraction he started getting a product that he could he could work with you know seeing his buddies business was now booming Courtney Brown decided to supplement his day job by mean lighting with Eddie my mother and father separated and my father went to stake his house on my twin Street and that morning I woke up in the morning and I hear these men talking in the kitchen and I peeped in the kitchen and it was power white substance on the table I had no idea what it was the pilot had to be like four feet high but my father the earth should be back in the room Eddie soon assigned him the task of finding an apartment building he could purchase to use as a headquarters for the operation Courtney found it on Hancock Street and John are in Midtown Detroit they was getting a little bigger they opened the place on Hancock kept saving his money and then he bought that building up the old Hancock and then he started selling for they wanted somebody that could come and pick up the money and Courtney was already working with them you say Berman you Favell y'all can stay upstairs then when they ask for the dope y'all drop it down there you bring your money as Detroit was changing and crying with skyrocketing in the city the Hancock building quickly became one of the city's most thriving heroin spots oh my chef I would open the door customer give me the money I will go up the steps put the money through a chute in the door they had made a pint in the ceiling they would drop the dope down right in front of the door customer would pick it up I took their money but I never handed him any product then I would open the door let them out but Hancock's rebuilding my father was the caretaker there and I see come visit my father and at this time Courtney and Eddie used to be in and out of the building and so they gave me the job and when I get out of school to come over there vacuum the floor you know tidy up the building on side to build penny caps downstairs then we sell what we called wait Dean was like a gram or two grams a baldric penny caps which is dollar caps out the back door and they were selling half quarters and eighths out the front the drug deal is the first time that we begin to see money that was well beyond pimps you started seeing a different type of young black man we started seeing Mercedes Benzes you started seeing a Rolls Royce occasionally Bob tell me do not go in the basement with me being a young guy and you know being mischievous I'll go in the basement anyway and I see the same thing again and pee bags full of money only this time another section of the basement that NP bags and these little brown packages inner with what we known as ace and the easte bag was filled all the way to the top first time we we made $1000 if we thought we just held up doing a hell of a thing that was 69 the first time we ever made $1000 in one day I just think people come there and get packages long you know a whole bag full a you know I never seen I've never seen nobody to come get a single nothing violence and other problems were avoided by strategy and focus Eddie Jackson ran things differently than most dealers customer service was his number one commandment we didn't have security problems at the joint because only one person you couldn't come in three people and only one person buy that doesn't leave room for a robbery on that part on an average we were doing $10,000 a day on some boots on the weekend we do 15,000 so you needed two three four or five people to be going through at different times picking up the money we had guys working three shifts just like they were before we we paid vacation they were eight hours a day they got paid overtime and we had a bunch of law workers my father would call me and say the fat man wants you to go to Stouffer him I got to catch the bus from Lafayette chain all the way to Hancock Anjaana just to go to Stowe for him for orange pop and he would give me $100 as the Hancock took off an arrangement was made with the 13th police precinct to provide protection from raids in exchange for a share of the drug proceeds after the business really got big yeah police saw used to come once a month to get paid this paid off when Eddie and Courtney got tipped by the Detroit Police of an impending raid by federal narcotics officials they approached steady and totally lookit man we get word that they're gonna read co2 here is a big dope house on Hancock the local caps told the dealers to leave a small amount of heroin packs in the spot but diluted to less than normal strength so when the feds came they think the Hancock building was just another small-time operation showed up they raided that night showed up they find the few packs that we left around the workers he native just junkies let him go but he was a thinker and I think that's what you saw a think of - the violence temporarily anyway when I said that he knew how to move his kilos he knew about connections for the first time we were seeing young black men with the option of you can do this not be on Wall Street but you can do this and be a thinker and that was very different [Music] he's always he was the businessman he was always people would come and talk to him and he was like he was giving directions he was like he was the facilitator around we're wondering why you haven't sued or taking some other action I think if these stories had been written about me I would be denying them to the nth degree well we denied it already and I can say it alone you had an illegal manner through the courts I didn't ever see him get loud with nobody I never seen him with a confrontational nobody he was always cool a well-oiled machine all the time people see Eddie is a great business man which he was and he got this from his father but I've always said on myself Eddie was an expert on understanding moving nature and a lot of people might not remember well enough to give him credit and that's one of the standards that Eddie would always applies look at you do not mistreat the customer period you ain't got nobody enough money so what you take the $8 in rad we didn't call it whatever it is his philosophy was dis as long as I get 95% of the money I could care less about the 5% this is another reason products that kept a lot of things from happening to him is how he didn't get played out his life because a lot of drug dealers do you know irassman know talking about them no degrade no then I trade sex for favors sex for drugs if a woman come in there and then having them on UK tellers to have all sex with you and you give her the credit that was a no-no if you cut that you would fire though the money was beginning to really pour in for Eddie and his crew Courtney brown decided he'd had enough and went back to working full-time as a bus driver I went on back to work bought a house on Mark Twain for a whole year and I didn't see any in there by 1970 Eddie was one of the biggest dealers in the city and Courtney was growing tired of the street life letters a year 1970 Halloween I don't know how it came to a crossroad in my life I would say whoever go back to work for the state we were back in hosted with Eddie I decided to go see Eddie you said you can help Rudolf 511 Russell and fairly mix-up I would behind in my house note and all that and he said I don't worry about it I straighten it when I get back every street between here and port Comerica Park it was a joint and everybody was getting money everybody was getting money that's had this ever since like I say 60 at 69 all the way to early seventies no guys selling drugs I make as much money wasn't making coz we was selling mixed jazz that's where your money was me that was quinine doorman and lactose we would we would take a key and make nine keys just as Cortney returned to the crew John Classen Eddie's main supplier disappeared under indictment and facing a lengthy jail sentence he fled Detroit and became one of de A's number one fugitives Klassen was never seen again Eddie continued to briefly do business with Klassen's wife but he desperately needed a new source for heroin if he wanted to keep getting rich Eddie had a plan they did just granted Ollie his license back the fight I told you today I'm bill the greatest of all and it the buzzwords everybody's going New York [Music] when Eddie goes to fight it go just all up and drive this Fleetwood Fame to the fight Eddie Jackson and his entourage made such an impression at Madison Square Garden that evany magazine published a photo of them alongside the now and from the shot of Frank Lucas in his chinchilla head in New York Eddie so the story goes bumped into some Italians most likely members of the Bronx based Gambino crew that distributed most of the French Connection heroin entering the country the Italians observed that Eddie appeared to be in the same business as them and that maybe they could work together he comes back so we meet he said look at man I'm missing my italians and they say they can they'd letting the stuff go for sixteen thousand a key he asked me say what do you think I say Eddie you know more not know he said I'll tell you what we're gonna send Dolph up there what good did Oliver get three keys Eddie didn't know it at the time but he had just made one of the great connections of the Golden Age of heroin back at the hotel room I put the heroin in the clothes when I get on a plane I put it in the overhead compartment and and it was just that easy realizing the goldmine they had on their hands Eddie and Courtney began flooding the streets of Detroit with their new product that was my first job transporting from New York to Detroit I would take two or three million at a time every couple of weeks or month we make the trip up in New York cop come on back I never had no problems like I see here we was protected from time you stay I pick it up to the time I get across George Washington Bridge as the organization grew and he stuck to his old circle of childhood friends from the Bible when I came home from the joint that's how who he had around yet 500 golf court he was there and Russell was dead yeah everybody had a bad from different people just then there was getting familiar at that time it was to plan if not everybody direct/indirect eddie an uncanny ability to inspire people if you had a very good grasp on human nature you know what people might do what people wanted to he would say look here man here's a couple ounces day after day do you say you you ain't no half ounce person you go you half a kilo man here you know baby you don't need when you get friend and Eddie's dog him off the ground for Eddie Jackson's legend was growing in the streets just as fast as his bankroll well first of all I told you he was a people person and lot of people that was his audience is customers and they family and kids even people that wasn't his customer you didn't have to be his customer to be in his audience yeah I understand all you had to do was catch him on the right day and be there and you was all you was fitting to see something that you probably ain't gonna witness again in your lifetime do you deny flatly that you were in any way tied in with the illegal drug would you care to reveal just what your business holdings are how you've acquired this wealth now if you want to check on that you can say it's a matter of record you're saying that you have property yes I do how did you acquire the property would you mind telling us that sir whatever I tell you that did you know my business a lot of stories other people told of me because he was sort of bashful in telling me this when he came home we go out hanging together and other people come telling me stories he sit there kind of bad for this body did you really do that part you know ideas you understand me just push a button on me and at that time I had to be Superman you understand where they pushed that button I turned into Superman yes I was we've turned the corner on drug addiction in the United States drug addiction in the United States is under control Richard Nixon might have thought he had the country's drug problem under control but he certainly didn't have Eddie Jackson under control it was Eddie Jackson Eddie Jackson's crew and then it was just everybody else did probably got stuff to Eddie Jackson everybody in the city knew Eddie Jackson and everybody knew he was on top of the pyramid I was his right-hand man well yeah he was real cash Matic you know Waldheim was flashy stuff from where his hair in the superfly hairstyle and so forth you know buddy compared with Eddie Jackson son said Eddie Jackson live he could be emulated but never duplicated he used to come to the joints that I used to be it and by everybody every time they won't and give us some money to do something open up the crap table and half of the gamble with him yeah he beat us all cause he keep on bed and it sooner or later he's gonna throw herself more slut moaning hey turn around and give us all back the money they leave if you go out he rolled it okay I'm gonna take 250 people I got a mean a blow we all will go down here and blow this mean together so we are going to the fight we all going wherever we go and we not nobody gonna be shortchanged you ain't got to worry about being hungry if you got enough money to gamble it was a entertainment he entertained us well he walked he talked shit all the time you have a bag full of $1 bills in the car plus all the $1 bills that came from the joints and from the streets he throw that away you know you ride down the village street and just know that wonder bowing money out of the car down into Brewster projects it is right down John on come on out the Wonder and everybody like we'd be riding on the street not don't have nothing to do and we have a sack of money edison man we just take these money to store that the winner right now would just go crazy grabbing the money and so forth stampy yes they're people running turn the cars that we try to get the money all the $1 bills and keep them you kept hundred-dollar bills in his in his pocket bills in America I am ready giving a lot of people money and say uh-oh we need you you know and I'll turn them on to the business and then sometime the personal once he was stopped and actually you all right tell him what he might be no Chuck and that was a life that they don't have no you know this is another reason I believe that he threw the money out of the car because he appreciated his companies he also knew without his customers even though he was using heroin it would be no him what these men represent was a new way of entrepreneurship and also what you did with that money they're the ones that start showing up at the fights that were hardly in Frazier they were the ones that were traveling for the first time we never saw that before you talking about travel you can you can like and go to Chicago you get your Chi like go to Alabama but suddenly these young men that had drug money and it spread very quickly the girl ah ohh i want to give with you know Eddie or whoever Thursday going down to the Bahamas we do David someone who I'm talking about going overseas they were really just a whole new frame of thinking that the black community had not seen before we've been Amsterdam Holland pass France I be true without the only one really traveling with this name going around understanding country you know a few guys went with us understand but like I said most of the everybody else to get homesick six million keep on going it was beautiful whenever you see a black guy with the way we was addressing the we kind of jury stuff we had on did thought we was entertainers of something his name it wasn't you know South America from Rio de Janeiro all the way up to the Panama Canal by 1971 Eddie and Courtney's crew or so legendary that when Courtney bumped into prolific black author Donald Goines a Detroit native and heroin addict joins told him that the streets of the city knew that they were the best that ever did it in the heroin game goings even based many events in his novels I'm the real exploits of Eddie Jackson and his crew his outcome for those who and I've been seeing at all from all the guys who so-called from my Zetas Nick the Greek the John Claxton the whole crew and as far as we concerned y'all number one with their strong plug to the French Connection heroin pipeline the Jackson organization was operating at the absolute highest levels of the drug world it's a very complex subject I would say but it is a time that was I think revolutionary these new men came on the scene and they were doing cutthroat business but they were businessmen no different than Al Capone prohibition along with men like Nicky Barnes Frank Matthews and Frank Lucas's supplier Ike Atkinson Eddie Jackson was on the short list of most powerful black gangsters in the country whose only was two or three people I take his black for dealing with and it was one playing Matthews and one okay Goldfinger September 1971 the Jackson organization suffers its first setback Eddie's girlfriend Farah Lee is spotted at the airport traveling with two men and a large sum of cash to New York when he get to New York the team DEA was tipped off by the clerk at the airport didn't black woman two black guys had large sums of money going in New York she calls my house and tell me hey Eddie she got the package i tells Eddie to tell her don't go back to the airport get away from the airport so anyway she gets the airport they stops her she had two kilos of heroin she refuse to cooperate period she wouldn't tell him nothing but one of the guys Reynolds who was with her tip toe told the DEA that she was working for a guy named Eddie Jackson she was his girlfriend and that's what the dope fiends want with Lee incarcerated and Eddie's name now known to federal drug agents the field marshal Courtney brown was dispatched to New York to deal with the problem when Eddie got ready to post the bond for her they said no they did gonna do stood harm to the girl if she got out to a tell mr. Jackson proposed another $50,000 everyone to go out so I flew back to Detroit picked up $50 now took him back to the bonding company the girl got out after being hooked up with F lee Bailey 's legal partner H Ross black Fairley was finally granted by but Eddie Jackson and his crew were on the feds radar in a major way it gave her seven years she done for three years or something like that with all the heroin they had coming in Eddy decided to get out of the retail business and become strictly wholesale he called a meeting at Courtney Brown's house he calls a meeting childhood all Ronald Garrett and myself in any edit figured he had went as far as he could in the business that way meet in my kitchen area announce that he's getting out of the that part of the business y'all can happen y'all can predict trade up among yourself you'd be own boss he says the only person got a choice in this is Courtney he can stay with me or it could be his own boss and I can understand that he said plus y'all been good loyal workers I'm gonna give each one of y'all ten thousand dollars a piece y'all free to do what y'all want to do it the businesses y'all as the money I'm doing it myself five old we set our own operation r500 had his crew and I had my crew him at five old few didn't he started that price war thing and ran the priceless stuff down to half of quarters for $20 and they was just instantly my business took off five o's took off anywhere from forty to fifty thousand dollars a day Rudolph was there's my man you drop drop off the big bags quarters too big shopping bags full of quarters and pick up the shopping bags full of money I started off with five Oh Ronnie Garrett and like I said he was the fool ooh he was the fool out of the whole group his name i knocking police out and all that and like I said when I started off with him your stand I stayed in jail yes they're fighting the police with him I mean he was knocking about two and three and four at a time five oh he was a renegade I used to pick up his money anywhere yes then no never no less than 50,000 just an a date by this time Eddie himself was grossing roughly two million dollars a month over ten million in today's dollars triple that figure by the time Rudolph five-oh and others sold it in the street Eddie by that time we have to tell you me idiot shot pass everybody in the city put together and when we do we could dump ten kilos at one time and we won't see the guys for two weeks I'll go collect the money do we leave you get another package insulated from the streets Eddie and Courtney spent their time with family and hobnobbing with every black celebrity that passed 83 at the height of the Motown era how's your life been mr. Jackson since these revelations first came about the stories about your quote posh fortress but it was it was a time of wine women and song the entertainers wanted to take pictures with the likes of those men like Eddie Jackson so you'd see The O'Jays and the beautiful like Phyllis Hyman they were the ones that will go to the little private parties I have to a concert and those men were an elite team red fox crossed paths with Eddie and Courtney and a show in Detroit and they showed him all the best hospitality and he said well well y'all guys probably say Detroit and he said you know I like that white girl hey girl community Liberty gentlemen not white girls around him we knew he talked about cocaine I have a new TV show yeah it was named stand for the Sun so I'm gonna win he got into cocaine he had his own personal suite up for the Pontchartrain it was once said that 80% of Motown music at that time was done under the influence of Eddie Jackson's drugs any time any entertainers came to the city we were supplying it with cocaine because we was giving it to him Richard Pryor the deal the OJ knew Ouija other dramatics Eddie Kendricks you name him we serve him and they got it all free because me and Eddie used to buy two and three keys of cocaine gets by personal by this time Eddie was more of a celebrity himself than many of the Motown acts and he floated through the streets like a movie star there were these names of guys who also hung out with a very stylish and important men who were part of Berry Gordy's Motown so you look at that holland-dozier-holland those are young men writing songs to make your money so you had this this whole image of cool that had changed but back then it wasn't about no territory or somebody having a good time who was the shoppers who had the biggest diamond ring while the Jackson organization handled their business like a fortune 500 company most of you traits other dealers seem more concerned with murder than making money it was coming up in the paper ten people was getting crossed out dead life you know and large sums of money missing by 72 Detroit's murder rate led the country and Detroit had become known all around the world as the murder City the 750 murders last year was a record for Detroit murder capital of the country Detroit's murder rate is twice that of New York and Chicago is four times that of SAMHSA's and for the next two to three years you had an all-out drug war in Detroit drug pushers procures killers are considered heroes of sorts I was his junk so murder shootings I'll let they'll tell the law later but that's what me and II wouldn't agree it the guys I run it with that was the norm for them but any wouldn't you wouldn't never tolerate that and a lot of people that I've spoken to have referred to them as the gentleman gangster you know the guy that was street savvy that knew how to make a living on the street in the underworld knew how to you know the ultimate politician meet the right people make the right connections and make everyone happy and do it all without having the really brandish have done somehow we avoided all that we knew who the characters was but they said they would involve us and we didn't bother him he fancies himself a businessman that happened to sell drugs as opposed to a psychopathic drug dealer killer that happened to also kind of dabbling bit while Courtney and Eddie were able to steer clear of much of the killing they were also prepared and ready to deal with dangers that lurked in the murder scene somebody had mentioned to somebody else that day was gonna arrive because used to wear diamonds and stuff I remember they were shooting that the people downtown I remember there's one guy he robbed it a couple times over on Chicago we're fairly used to stay we cut it in the hall when it robbed he wants to do real stuff and he called him again and me rotten idiot tons in the bank I hit you a couple of licks you know I know you a hustle just like I'm a hustler look we cut this on out so dude didn't pay heat so you know he came up on the missing me he was one of the main figure than to stick up me and all that one get everybody new in the city also call bad guy good guys five-o child Rudolph Courtney idiot ain't none to play with if you come down to a gun plate they were scared to do what they got to do they were players and they were also part of urban legend there would be a lot of younger guys looking at them they were watching at each axon they want to see what he was wearing if he wore a certain styled even if they couldn't afford it they it's kind of like the Nike commercials with Michael Jordan be like Mike they wanted to be like that gangster he was the man and it wasn't a lot of puffing up I never even saw anything remotely close to box because those guys were too smart in doing that right relative house a man's two alleged conduct some Benjamin in this guy Norman Burt and him and I was in the kitchen talking friend of mine who with me named Joe Weaver he overheard a conversation he didn't get all the conversation but is enough to alert him to come in the kitchen and call me a sassy Courtney this guy coming robbing us does he give me the pistol so I'm coming back in the kitchen and I didn't reinvest cause I put it to his head pleaded million Jade Jolie son you can get could man I ain't done inane Sedna as I said that's the only way you idiot now December 1971 Courtney and Eddie receive a huge load of heroin from New York December the 14th diet aliens called me and say tell your man Eddie everything's straight Andy and I haven't beaten plot how are we gonna do this we agreed that we wouldn't gonna go back this headdress on Hubble one nine three one five unknown to them in the three months since Farrelly's arrest at the airport with two keys of pure heroin they had been under constant surveillance and wiretapping got 12 kilos we don't cut a ten times at a minimum so it ought have been 120 kilos just as the cutting process of the pure heroin began federal agents burst in the stash and the nineteen thousand block of Hubbell and Northwest e-trade last year the Y attempts Eddie and George black gets on the phone and tells four or five people that the dope is down here the ponies poisoning all the blue hell broke loose and and out runs upstairs closed upstairs we see the dope not putting his test like it's supposed to be the guy who's been watching Reggie went down watching television and was watching the door 22 kilos of heroin were discovered which stood for 40 years as the largest heroin seizure in Michigan history 83 to do open air it was so strong they had to get gas mass so they dressed us all of five others eddie peed everybody bought and we barn out when he read it anyhow my house they don't find no drugs but it would anyhow filing a lot of people were from real estate of yo free on bail Eddie and Courtney laid low for several weeks but in January 72 a massive 32 person indictment came down on the crew I remember I was at home I got a call one morning and I answered the phone and didn't they hung up and the next thing the dough went crashing in after everyone was picked up by the feds Eddie hired famed civil rights attorney and Malcolm X's confidant Milton Henry to lead the criminal defense team and bailed out all 32 co-defendants with his own money that was it a sequel is a 16 count indictment a manufacturing and distribution of heroin and cocaine the indictments did little to slow down the Jackson organization a side note to the Jackson story that I find interesting is that most of Jackson's biggest making months or years were at the time that he was dealing with a lot of legal wranglings he was under several indictments on at the same time that he was making himself the biggest wholesale drug dealer all Detroit and possibly all of the Midwest so that's a that's a very fascinating aspect of it the Italians called you know always checking on us we informed them what happened they say don't worry about a senior man back up here but the heroin still flowing Eddie and Courtney got right back to work and they came back with two kilos out of the two kilos we made 30 kilos out of it but everybody I mean got busted got scared to deal with us now girls do bus so for about one or two weeks I mean we couldn't sell nothing then but two days later Eddie come on my house blowing the honk permit I mean here they would give me a bag of money and see what's this $60,000 and you got in GC his flipping his stuff so from that on the things picked up despite their legal troubles 1972 and 73 became the biggest money-making years for the crew Eddie Jackson decided to buy a home which he tore down and rebuilt in one of Detroit's most exclusive suburbs the mostly Jewish city of Southfield when Eddie moved south feel you see I want these people to know I got some help you know I want y'all to come out here every day Eddie then made Courtney his official partner in the business why don't you move out here with your man I say move where say Southfield something I can't afford to live in the south feel y'all wait for you Oh Herman all right here what team would come now you ain't on celery don't know you could percentage of whatever comes in so every time some come in you get X amount of dollars now can you afford it I said yeah I remember vividly when my parents told me and my sister that we were moving the Southfield and that we were gonna be moving next to Teddy and I knew Eddie from coming by when we lived off outer drive on on Mark Twain you went out to North playing Gardens and it's got this Olympic sized swimming pool Wow Eddie focused on the streets Courtney focused on his family life paid cash for the interior decorator cost $50 for an interior decorator pay $65,000 cash for the house but green new cars jewelry and stuff you knew once I saw the new neighborhood we were gonna be moving into that this was a lot nicer than the way most people lived first time I walked in the house I'm talking about is some it was like it was magical yellow carpet powder blue furniture and a black baby grand piano I don't see stuff like that on TV there's a stairwell leading up stairs to the bedroom Smokey Robinson down the street Pete for that matter one of the holland-dozier-holland at this time there maybe have been six black kids in the halls public school system most of all their parents were professionals pharmacists doctors or lawyers there was a few of the motel people who stayed around us Smokey Robinson and temptations but me and my brother we became celebrities because people knew that we were family we're like 16 15 16 and 17 we used to drive out the South field and show these people how cousins live in that house there they never saw me with no joy if what no calling my house and telling a tale Courtney Joe blows on the corner you couldn't come we come by and pick up a package it didn't happen and doing gonna happen they didn't see nothing and all didn't even see me was with a lot of money it seemed like there was always bags of money coming and going in the house just stacked almost to the ceiling just a room full of money stacked to the ceiling even as a kid you're able to put together the fact that things I want I can get just being spoiled of death getting any anything that your mind could even think you wanted and more the doorbell rings I get on the intercom and I ask who is it and the guy says Joe Weaver I know Joe weave I know he's a good friend of my father and I know he's working with my dad and everything so he goes on and explained to me that I need to tell my father that he's with Muhammad Ali and I look out the window and I see somebody's with Joe Weaver and I'm like okay let me go tell father that Muhammad Ali's at the door I try to tell my father was asleep basically try to explain to him to Joe Weaver is saying that he's got Muhammad Ali at the door and then we gotta let them in father's having no patience tell Joe Weaver to see me in the morning on that time today I go back and tell Joe that my father says he's not getting out of bed and then the next morning Joe Weaver comes back with a bunch of pictures that have me Muhammad Allah eating what really started the problem with us was me an idiot start didn't have cocaine he just about this 70 full Fleetwood that bloom until he won a gap full ounces cocaine I had drove all the way to Texas we ran out of cocaine he said my let's turn around go back and another friend of ours huggabug he was with me at the time and he just he was really mad at me because he thought he was two biggest fools in the world we get the ride and they get in the backseat with me but Union Missouri and state troopers full of gold but we couldn't hide the money cause bleeding money wasn't in no suitcase or no bag we just had it landed on the back seat so he'd look to see the money till he'd get on the radio to sum up we got three three bank robbers so the next morning Miller coming at us we got out the problems in Missouri were small time compared to what happened in Pennsylvania he was pulled over driving Courtney Brown's wife's Cadillac in the trunk state police found 11 pounds of heroin and three kilos of cocaine Milton Henry got Eddie out of that jam to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed the case after certain donations were delivered to Philadelphia by Courtney brown I wasn't into that foolishness it was business of me and family came first and I could separate the one from the other he kept it so separate and he's my little league baseball coach he's my little league basketball coach a lot of the kids from the neighborhood came by and played at our house and my you know if you ask most of the kids I grew up with their memories of my father would be him I'll shoot oops with us and he had throw the basketball come on I ain't too old I whoop you uncle high we subside and play basketball he's to bet me he's to bet me that I could I couldn't whoop him I never working on basketball but any illusions anyone may have had about their new suburban lifestyle was shattered in March of 73 when the front page of the Detroit News papers listed Eddie and Courtney as two of the city's kingpins third-grade on my way to school like every morning I walk out and then I pick up the newspaper and I bring him back in the house and the front page of it is some picture of Eddie's house and I'm our house and the caption reads kingpin Eddie Jackson lives in lap of luxury and house to the laugh is his chief associate Courtney brown and I read it and I throw the paper back into the house like always and then me and Eddie walk to get on the school bus and it hits me as I'm getting on the bus that everybody else just read the same paper and vestigation that the feds had when they invited all those guys now I was running the house on Benson and I was selling like anywhere from like 20 $25,000 worth of quarters a day my name never came up in the indictment so the indictment had to be kind of ephemeral you know a little short and compact you know what I'm saying they didn't know the whole story uh you know it was a whole lot of people that didn't get indicted man that should have got indicted but didn't when Courtney took his daughter to enroll in an elite private school they knew just who he was so we went to country date we get the country date jr. would with us and guy open up a folder and I look in the folder they got headlines drug kingpin lives in Southfield let me tell you like did I got enough money sent him anywhere in the world to school and I've not allowed my daughter be harassed or victimized by what some odd mayor did I may not dick all the time I hadn't been convicted of anything one Christmas song my mother and father took us to Toys R Us and you know most kids have a shopping list or Santa Santa Paws wish list but we didn't have a list they just told us to pick out what we wanted they didn't put a limit on how many toys to get or what twice to get and me and my sister just went aisle aisle after aisle and then after we got a car load of stuff we just and that that was Christmas in it and I had a little younger brother and sister these come over their house on the weekends and when they should come back home Sunday night it's like they've been in Macy's this come on with bikes bags of clothes and I'm like I wish I was younger so I can get some of this stuff too like any good father my father would pass out candy at Halloween but he would keep a pistol at the bottom of the Halloween bag the Jackson trial finally came to a head and nearly 30 of the 32 defendants were convicted on almost all counts but incredibly Milton Henry's legal maneuverings kept everyone free on appeal by and they kept right on going in the streets in 1975 Eddy and black Butch were arrested in Las Vegas for violating the terms of their bond by leaving the state of Michigan when I turned myself in in April 1st 1977 Eddie Jackson got 30 years Courtney brown got 21 I was immediately transferred to Atlanta penitentiary which was so called hardcore I mean you will have baby statutes are still in the check to top mafiosos families in the world I kept going on and they came over me and I got a revoke bail so me and Eddie wound up at the same federal prison which was Leavenworth Leavenworth was I used to watch that on The Untouchables Walter Winchell narrate I never thought I'd grow up to go someplace like that 40-foot wall and they put me in an inn i I said my life is over because you can't see out Eddie and Courtney's legal maneuverings continued from prison and Eddie was finally released in 1984 with Courtney not far behind the streets had changed since the early 70s Detroit was a more violent place and a new breed of teenage drug dealers like the infamous young boys incorporated ruled the streets the atmosphere got younger he got Wilder because I was a part of it it's like everybody lost a mind it just wasn't no I don't know more I mean what no central feign in no one had really no connections bigger night like Eddie had these guys had local connection and they were local and it wasn't no direction nobody really no leadership it's just that's the problem with drugs no you got people steel selling drugs but they ain't like the horse traders we was back in the old days after only 18 months on the street Eddie Jackson was arrested in a massive new indictment and sent back to prison for heroin distribution Courtney brown managed to maintain a lower profile but he was still the field marshal his son Courtney jr. was now old enough to learn more about the family business tie my father got out of prison following the following the case with him and Eddie was an 84 which was at the exact time that I was starting college at WMU University they got a good education and good to the right schools and got the right connections they could make just as much money one way or they could the other way if they become educated legitimately and if we decide to everyone to do is we're gonna be on my part saying come on join the club running errands for his father in the late 1980s Courtney jr. got a unique perspective on the way the world really works all that once sent me to see some guys in in New York some banking guys and they were like on 6th Avenue right in the middle of midtown Manhattan and it's got these fancy offices and pretty secretaries in the stock market machine printing out stock market quotes and it looked like a legitimate brokerage firm but you know the real deal is when you go in the back it's just a couple of old white guys sitting around a desk with a whole bunch of people bringing the money in and what they were doing work they were money launderers some people from israel there's some people from South America there's some people from West Africa and then to myself we were all taking Angela services that these people and lower Manhattan did they were people that you could bring $200,000 of singles and $5 bills and then they didn't ever ID you a check from some company boom and it's funny cuz at the same time I'm going to class and I'm taking economics and business 101 and marketing you know it's kind of hypocrisy of the world because I'm like daddy how the real world works the difference between corporate America and the narcotics world that line is so much thinner than people really really know Courtney jr. eventually became a successful retailer and real estate developer his sister is a lawyer most people will start their businesses started from the money they save or family or relatives giving them their money to get started in this case I asked my father for some money to start a store in Harlem I was fortunate enough that he had the resources and he did and it allowed me to live what I call the poor man Puffy's lifestyle and I'm a 27 year old african-american guy store across the street from the Apollo I made a lot of money at the store but a lot of drugs a lot of girls a lot of escorts a lot of limo rides unfortunate thing is I was actually able to go back to my family again and get some more money to to keep my business going the legacy of Eddie Jackson and Courtney Brown is a complex one really only regrets was that uh that I got caught you know it showed me the I learned a lot I got a chance to see a lot of the world but that's all I knew at that time that's all we knew then was our role models you know that's not the road to take you'll have to live like that it's a better way today well the be honest with don't add all these glorified snitches such as Frank Lucas standing up there beat me just like they was helluva fellas and in the end they turned out to be worse than women so if you cannot handle the pressure in the weight don't get in the game if you got to tell on everybody you know and your mom and your dad everybody you know to get out of trouble just stay doing what you do now cuz that game ain't for you most people the day you look at cannot handle the weight Mickey bonds snitch frank lucas snitch where's the real ones this is a story about a real one from the beginning to the end never telling no nobody you know as I've grown older I understand that the fact that I've been able to travel the world the fact that I've you know hung out with Prince fortune 500 people and I've been able to experience some things just very few people on earth ever gonna be able to experience and a lot of those things come from the fact of the lifestyle that my father and education opportunities some of the things that he did allowed me to do all these gangster movies on TV about they sending their kids off and become successful and things like that but this is the only black family I seen do that they really did it so I you know you as a as a grown man as you know the 46 year old man I understand you take the bitter with the sweet that me and my sister have often you know conversate well what would life had been like if father would have just dropped you know kept driving kept driving the bus who knows you know it wasn't it wasn't in the cards you know it is what it is and it was what it was is actually it's no different than all of America but for some reason those who report to history have always left the blocks on the plantation even in those type of activities I don't see a great deal of difference except that Kennedy was making a lot more money Joseph Kennedy became an ambassador Eddie Jackson didn't become an ambassador on the streets of Detroit though Eddie Jackson and his crew are still remembered is the best that ever did and the ties of friendship and family that started in black bottom in Paradise Valley so many years ago still hold strong we use crime as a commodity and in terms of economics you know you ask yourself questions like tobacco how many people died last year from tobacco when we started talking about the moral value of what Eddie Jackson and others do I'm not condoning what they do what I'm simply saying is that there are many on that playing field I don't separate our story it from the story really I mean of the history of the idea of the immigrant group the Jews the Irish I mean as every group in America has attempted to go to the next level economically the story of organized crime and narcotics has played a part at it on the jury is still out we don't know what's gonna happen to the african-american families that were involved with serious crime and they're true these are the trials and tribulations that go on as a family goes from black bottom or Paradise Valley to working-class jobs - sometimes that bridge that family into the professional world into the entrepreneurial world into the next levels of stratas of life in our case and the many other families in America that bridge has been paid for by activities in the underworld [Music] [Music]

Channel: Al Profit

Views: 2,771,593

Rating: 4.6365027 out of 5

Keywords: motown mafia, black mafia family, drug kingpin documentary, courtney brown jr, Al Profit Motown Mafia, big meech Eddie Jackson, al profit documentaries, gangsters most evil detroit, gangland detroit, eddie jackson detroit, motown mafia detroit documentary, american gangster, black mafia family documentary, detroit documentary al profit, Motown Mafia Al profit, american dope, nicky barnes, al profit detroit, american dope bmf, american dope frank matthews

Id: sh96VMmtYks

Length: 69min 52sec (4192 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 22 2019