Speaker 1: Novel. Before we begin, a content warning. The following episode
Speaker 1: contains difficult themes and violence. The Manhattan Courthouse is surrounded.
Speaker 2: There were over one thousand people who showed up outside
Speaker 2: the courtroom. They had snipers on the roofs in Foley Square.
Speaker 2: They had police officers with riot guns in the hallway.
Speaker 1: Inside Courtroom one forty eight, smoke stained shades do all
Speaker 1: they can to block out the sun and any industrious
Speaker 1: lucky loose hoping to get a peek inside, and who
Speaker 1: could blame them.
Speaker 3: At the time, it was called the Trial of the Century.
Speaker 3: It really was national news.
Speaker 1: Men in dark suits crowded every available seat.
Speaker 2: The entire gallery during the trial was full.
Speaker 1: Of press their hats, rest on their knees or turn
Speaker 1: in their hands. Some fidget, some slouch, others sit ramrod straight.
Speaker 1: Everyone is focused on the scene in front of them,
Speaker 1: a man with a carefully groomed mustache walking confidently toward
Speaker 1: the stand.
Speaker 2: He was very aggressive and very ambitious.
Speaker 3: That was his personality. Dewey loved being in the spotlight.
Speaker 1: Thomas E. Dewey, famed investigator of the crime syndicates, casting
Speaker 1: a menacing shadow across America.
Speaker 4: How do you take this random mayhem of violence and
Speaker 4: bring it under the law.
Speaker 5: Thomas Dewey enters the picture on that platform.
Speaker 1: His assistant attorney's shuffle papers. The courtroom leans closer towards
Speaker 1: the main attraction. The man facing Dewey on the stand
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 3: Called sometimes the boss of bosses.
Speaker 5: Slender, slightly darker skin tone of Sicilian extraction.
Speaker 1: A suit jacket covers tattoos on the defendant's forearms.
Speaker 5: All symbols of luck. He took great effort to keep
Speaker 5: those tattoos out of the public light. At the time,
Speaker 5: tattoos were not exactly the upstanding citizen kind of thing.
Speaker 1: A silk shirt and gold watch mark him as a
Speaker 1: man with expensive taste. He wipes a handkerchief over his
Speaker 1: brow and meets the eyes of the courtroom. Everyone can
Speaker 1: see it. Charles Lucky Luciano, one of the most feared
Speaker 1: mafia leaders anyone ever knew, is sweating. Maybe he was flustered.
Speaker 3: Maybe the government really did put him on edge.
Speaker 1: He used to be so sure of himself, but now
Speaker 1: things don't seem so certain anymore.
Speaker 6: Luciano really never stands a chance.
Speaker 2: He never should have taken the stand. That was the
Speaker 2: nail in Lucky's.
Speaker 1: Coffin a few blocks from the courthouse, on the fourteenth
Speaker 1: floor of Manhattan's gothic Woolworth Building, there is an office
Speaker 1: serviceable tidy inside sits the woman responsible for putting Lucky
Speaker 1: Luciano on trial, Eunice Hunting Carter, thirty six years old
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, bright eyes the kind of quietly
Speaker 1: amused expression that makes you think she's laughing at a
Speaker 1: joke she can't share. She's New York's first black female
Speaker 1: prosecutor for the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan. This is
Speaker 1: the biggest case of her career. But as Lucky Luciano
Speaker 1: squirms on the stand, Eunice Hunting Carter is not there
Speaker 1: on center stage. Her name never appears in court transcripts.
Speaker 1: Why not. There would be no trial of the century
Speaker 1: without her. But Unice's work on this case is far
Speaker 1: from over. Destiny has more in store for the trial's
Speaker 1: key players, uniting them forever in unexpected ways. Lucky, Dewey
Speaker 1: and Unice, all born within five years of each other,
Speaker 1: similar ages, similar ferocious ambitions, and.
Speaker 2: Their lives intersect in a courtroom for one month in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: But only two we're given the opportunity to stand out.
Speaker 1: Lucky and Dewey will go down in history. Eunice was
Speaker 1: kept from the spotlight. Maybe it's not surprising that in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six a black woman was not given room
Speaker 1: to share the stage, But nearly ninety years later, Eunice
Speaker 1: Hunting Carter still isn't the hose household name. And that
Speaker 1: is surprising, or at least I think it should be,
Speaker 1: because recently I've come to learn about Unice Hunting Carter
Speaker 1: and she wasn't just the engineer of this one defining
Speaker 1: moment in mob history. Eunice was a pioneer across all
Speaker 1: kinds of spheres that have come to shape America. Eunice
Speaker 1: was there navigating worlds designed to hold her back, often
Speaker 1: leaving them transformed. So I've been talking to some people
Speaker 1: who have remembered her name, people who can help me
Speaker 1: tell her story.
Speaker 2: Unice Carter was the spark that started the.
Speaker 1: Fire, a black woman who took on one of the
Speaker 1: country's most notorious mobsters. I want more people to hear
Speaker 1: what she did, even more than her achievements. I want
Speaker 1: to understand who she was.
Speaker 7: It's not even just that not everyone remembers Unis, but
Speaker 7: that people don't even believe she could have existed.
Speaker 3: She was really active in the Harlem Renaissance.
Speaker 8: Eunis ran for office. People thought she was going to win.
Speaker 1: She didn't back down in an argument.
Speaker 3: This is a straight shooter who will say something and
Speaker 3: mean it. But I think she was guarded.
Speaker 1: I did wonder if she felt stifled. All around us today,
Speaker 1: from school rooms to halls of legislation, Black American history
Speaker 1: is being erased. Remembering Eunice Hunting Carter feels more urgent
Speaker 1: than ever. But is that even possible when so many
Speaker 1: years of erasure and forgetting lie in our way. I
Speaker 1: want to find out to try to put Eunice Hunting
Speaker 1: Carter back in the spotlight.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to ask first Missus Eunice Carter to
Speaker 3: tell us some of the things that she has on
Speaker 3: our mind.
Speaker 4: This is awesome, Well, Missus Roosevelt, I have to agree,
Speaker 4: and our association agrees with what doctor Malack just said.
Speaker 4: We are concerned more though, with the implementation of human
Speaker 4: rights for all mankind.
Speaker 1: I'm Nicole Perkins and from the teams at iHeartRadio and Novel,
Speaker 1: this is the Godmother Episode one, Atlanta, nineteen twenty four
Speaker 1: replica by Eunice ROBERTA.
Speaker 9: Hunting noonday sun scorched a treeless ribbon of brick red road.
Speaker 9: A breeze, hot and languid, stirred, fitfully angry, red dust
Speaker 9: rose in great puffs, only to settle back heavily on
Speaker 9: all who dared the road. And then impasse for the
Speaker 9: way ended quite suddenly in according of vehicles, a ford,
Speaker 9: shining anew rubbed shoulders, with a road mender's pitch cart.
Speaker 9: They were all there, these and dozens of others, barricading
Speaker 9: the entrance to a grove of Georgia oaks.
Speaker 1: Long before I moved to New York and became a writer,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. This was during the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, and when it came time for me
Speaker 1: to go to college, I knew I wanted to stay
Speaker 1: in the South. I wanted the familiar, soupy heat, the
Speaker 1: magnificent magnolia and oak trees. Schools in Atlanta were some
Speaker 1: of the first I applied to. The city was the
Speaker 1: place to be for American black folks. Atlanta was about
Speaker 1: four hours away, the perfect destination for weekend trips and
Speaker 1: date nights for the black bourgeoisie and those who wanted
Speaker 1: to be It was where we went to shop for
Speaker 1: luxury brands that hadn't made it to Nashville yet. It
Speaker 1: was one of the top places in the country for
Speaker 1: black people who wanted wealth and education without leaving the South.
Speaker 1: The Atlanta I knew about a city that held so
Speaker 1: much promise for black people was shaped by the lives
Speaker 1: of those who arrived over one hundred years before. In
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, but the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow laws of the late eighteen hundred It's established
Speaker 1: a new form of segregation, and so to foster their
Speaker 1: own success, black people began creating communities like in Nicodemus, Kansas,
Speaker 1: or Greenwood, Tulsa. And in Atlanta.
Speaker 8: Hundreds, if not thousands, of African Americans migrated from rural
Speaker 8: areas of the state and elsewhere to Atlanta. They saw
Speaker 8: it as a place where they could make a life
Speaker 8: for themselves. That was really the first phase of Atlanta
Speaker 8: being viewed as a mecca for Black America.
Speaker 1: The Huntings are among those drawn to Atlanta. William Alfaez
Speaker 1: Hunting Senior and Addie Waite Hunting met in Norfolk, Virginia
Speaker 1: before moving there. William is thirty six Atty twenty four.
Speaker 1: It's eighteen ninety nine and they've just had a daughter.
Speaker 1: This was ADDIE's third pregnancy, and a difficult one. They've
Speaker 1: already lost two babies. They aren't sure this child will survive.
Speaker 1: For the first few weeks of her life, William and
Speaker 1: Addie just call her Sugar. But she's strong, healthy, and
Speaker 1: once her parents are sure she'll survive, they name her Unice.
Speaker 1: As Unice's childhood begins, the Hunting's are part of a thriving,
Speaker 1: regenerated Atlanta. They lived in the Auburn Avenue neighborhood.
Speaker 8: Auburn Avenue would be come by near twentieth century what
Speaker 8: Fortune magazine called the richest Negro street in the world,
Speaker 8: not just in the country, but in the world.
Speaker 1: It's close to the white part of town and near Peachtree,
Speaker 1: the Lively business district. I try to imagine Unice as
Speaker 1: a child, watching brick buildings go up around her, holding
Speaker 1: her mother ADDIE's hands as they walk downly paved streets.
Speaker 1: Units probably sees people from all walks of life, postal workers, seamstresses, accountants, reporters, bakers, tailors,
Speaker 1: hat makers.
Speaker 8: Whatever business that was needed by the black community was
Speaker 8: provided by black business people who catered to the needs
Speaker 8: of black residents and also in many cases, catered to
Speaker 8: the needs of whites.
Speaker 1: Off Peachtree, her family can do all their shopping knowing
Speaker 1: they're supporting black businesses and that the money remains in
Speaker 1: this community, lifting some families out of poverty.
Speaker 8: In the city, the majority of black people lived in poverty,
Speaker 8: as was the case in much of the South, but
Speaker 8: you had a strong emerging black middle class and upper
Speaker 8: middle class, and Atlanta became a magnet that drew these
Speaker 8: people who wanted to, of course find wealth, but I
Speaker 8: also wanted to aid in the uplift of the black community.
Speaker 1: The house that the Hunting's live in, it's big enough
Speaker 1: to require a maid, a cook, and a gardener. I'd
Speaker 1: love to have a maid and a cook right now.
Speaker 8: The Hunting family had a very nice home, like twelve
Speaker 8: to fifteen room home on Houston Street. Houston Street's where
Speaker 8: you had many prominent African Americans.
Speaker 3: I think they liked to have pleasant surroundings. But the
Speaker 3: most important thing to them was learning about the world.
Speaker 3: I get the impression that you would be surrounded by books,
Speaker 3: you'd be surrounded by bookcases.
Speaker 1: Unlike literally ninety nine percent of the Black community at
Speaker 1: that time. Unice's parents have been to college.
Speaker 3: Her father, William, was really active in his job, traveling
Speaker 3: through the South in the United States. He was gone
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: William Huntson is the first Black Secretary of the International.
Speaker 3: YA, trying to integrate and establish the YMCA for Black People.
Speaker 10: And Addie hunting She was a social activist in her
Speaker 10: own right, one of the founders of the National Association
Speaker 10: of Colored Women and then eventually one of the founding
Speaker 10: members of the Council of Negro Women.
Speaker 1: Addie writes long articles and gives speeches in front of
Speaker 1: packed crowds, and her audience hears a message of responsibility,
Speaker 1: how the first duty of black women is to their
Speaker 1: homes to focus on their families and children, and their
Speaker 1: next duty was to uplift the race. But Addie isn't
Speaker 1: really practicing what she preaches, just like her husband, her
Speaker 1: career often takes her away from Unice and her home,
Speaker 1: and as she begins to work with the National Association
Speaker 1: for the advancement of colored people. She starts taking even
Speaker 1: more trips away from her family.
Speaker 8: She alone, black woman would travel to various cities in
Speaker 8: which there have been unrest, attacks on the black community,
Speaker 8: attacks on those who attempted to establish branches of the NAACP.
Speaker 1: These trips were dangerous journeys, especially for a black woman.
Speaker 1: I can only imagine the kind of responses she got
Speaker 1: from strangers. To me, it speaks to her determination and dedication,
Speaker 1: her passion to be more than what society expects.
Speaker 8: She went to explore, to find out, to gather evidence,
Speaker 8: to talk to those to encourage individuals in those cities
Speaker 8: to establish the branches, and she was quite successful of it.
Speaker 8: She did so without fear.
Speaker 1: This makes me think of my own mother, because she
Speaker 1: sacrificed her own ambitions for our family. She made sure
Speaker 1: to tell my older sister and I to do more
Speaker 1: with our lives. As much as she loved us, she
Speaker 1: wanted us to pursue our dreams. I wonder if Addie
Speaker 1: had similar talks with unus. Addie seemed to sacrifice her
Speaker 1: home life for her larger ambitions at such a young age.
Speaker 1: Did Yunus understand that sacrifice or was she resentful of it.
Speaker 1: Eunice's parents are trying to help build a world where
Speaker 1: black people have rights and opportunities, a South where they
Speaker 1: can thrive racial uplift, but not everyone is thrilled by
Speaker 1: that vision. As a small child, perhaps staring wide eyed
Speaker 1: at a city being built around her, at her parents
Speaker 1: making waves in Black America, Unice cannot possibly know that
Speaker 1: she is standing in the middle of a tinder box.
Speaker 1: In July nineteen oh six, Eunice Hunting is seven years old,
Speaker 1: and she's got a younger brother to keep her busy.
Speaker 1: Now al Faeus, they're about four years apart. But you know,
Speaker 1: she's doing what little girls do, probably wanting toys or
Speaker 1: trips to the candy store, maybe even the library. She's
Speaker 1: definitely not thinking about who's going to be elected governor,
Speaker 1: which is a campaign happening around her in Atlanta that year.
Speaker 1: That election is just a few months away. Both candidates
Speaker 1: are Democrats.
Speaker 8: Pake Smith and Clark Howell. These were the owners publishers
Speaker 8: of Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution newspapers, two separate newspapers
Speaker 8: at that time, and each of those newspapers wrote sensational
Speaker 8: and largely false stories on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: So these two white men are stirring up a lot
Speaker 1: of racist unrest and flat out lying in order to
Speaker 1: make white Georgians afraid of the power of the black vote,
Speaker 1: which across America is still just a few decades old.
Speaker 8: African Americans were also granted the right of citizenship. The
Speaker 8: fourteenth Amendment and the fifteenth Amendment guaranteed voting rights for
Speaker 8: African American men, and so when African American men were
Speaker 8: given the right to vote declared citizens, it signaled to
Speaker 8: them a new day in terms of opportunities.
Speaker 1: And that threatened Smith and Howell, especially because when black
Speaker 1: men did turn out to vote, they were not voting
Speaker 1: for men like them, men whose families had defended slavery.
Speaker 8: African Americans were able to garner a degree of political power.
Speaker 1: White democrats like Smith and Howell were afraid of black
Speaker 1: voting power.
Speaker 8: They considered African Americans an economic threat because they felt
Speaker 8: they were in competition against these black businesses that were
Speaker 8: doing very well.
Speaker 1: At this point. As Atlanta heads into the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: black businesses are thriving, which is not what the country
Speaker 1: is used to. There are wealthy black people in places
Speaker 1: like Tulsa and Charleston, but you have to go looking
Speaker 1: for them. In Atlanta, segregation is still everywhere, but those
Speaker 1: black businesses exist side by side, So the growing prosperity
Speaker 1: of the black community is unavoidable. Why should black people
Speaker 1: have the same or better lives than the white citizens
Speaker 1: of Atlanta.
Speaker 8: It was during that time that the newspapers began to
Speaker 8: literally create stories that black men were assaulting white women
Speaker 8: in an attempt to really fan the flames of racism.
Speaker 8: The leadership of the white power structure really pulling the
Speaker 8: strings and manipulating their constituency.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, at the Hunting home, letters arrive from both Addie
Speaker 1: and William Hunting from their work travels on the road.
Speaker 1: William revels and news of Unice. How smart she is
Speaker 1: even as a little girl, but still just seven years
Speaker 1: old in that summer of nineteen oh six. I wonder
Speaker 1: if she's picking up on the rising tensions. Does her
Speaker 1: mother hold her hand tighter when white men come by
Speaker 1: on the street. Do they have a cold word in
Speaker 1: case they need to run? Whether or not Yunus understands
Speaker 1: what's happening around her. William and Addie have a crystal
Speaker 1: clear read of the situation.
Speaker 8: Black people were highly aware that something was about to happen.
Speaker 1: The black community in Atlanta is now preparing for the worst.
Speaker 8: They clandestinely ship in on train's weapons arms guns so
Speaker 8: they could protect themselves.
Speaker 1: It's the evening of September twenty second, nineteen oh six,
Speaker 1: a week and a half before the Smith Howell election.
Speaker 8: A Saturday evening. People were leaving work. People were coming
Speaker 8: into the downtown area to go to restaurants or the theater.
Speaker 8: People were going into the city to start work if
Speaker 8: they had night shifts or whatever.
Speaker 1: It may be the end of September, but summer in
Speaker 1: the South likes to linger, and Atlanta is a bowl
Speaker 1: of humidity.
Speaker 8: The streets were crowded and the street cars were crowded.
Speaker 1: It's also time for the latest edition of the evening
Speaker 1: newspapers to unleash their new fictions.
Speaker 8: The Atlanta Evening News on that day had just published
Speaker 8: an edition that screamed headlines about more texts on white women,
Speaker 8: newspaper boys out in the street, going extra, extra extra.
Speaker 8: This was an extra edition of the Atlanta Evening News.
Speaker 8: It was timed to really spark the animosity that was
Speaker 8: already building up they knew that there would be a
Speaker 8: number of people in the streets.
Speaker 1: Everybody black and white are crowded together on the street cars,
Speaker 1: bumping against each other on the sidewalk. It's hot.
Speaker 8: These newspaper boys yelling out black men, rapes, white women.
Speaker 1: People are irritated.
Speaker 8: The street cars were supposed to be segregated. You could
Speaker 8: imagine at the end of a day, when it's crowded,
Speaker 8: you got a long day at work, you don't really
Speaker 8: want to get up and give up your seat to somebody.
Speaker 1: People are getting in each other's faces.
Speaker 8: The animosity, that sense of urgency had been building.
Speaker 1: Up, and then the violence starts on the street. Things
Speaker 1: get ugly fast.
Speaker 8: People said we're gonna kill every black person in sight.
Speaker 8: Then they say every black person. They used the N word,
Speaker 8: whether it's a man, whether it's a woman, whether it's
Speaker 8: a child. They did not care whether that person was
Speaker 8: just simply trying to get home and get away from
Speaker 8: the crowd, or that person was taking a stand and
Speaker 8: said I'm not gonna let anybody intimidate me. They would
Speaker 8: grab that person, pull them off the street cars, first
Speaker 8: of all, run them down if they were walking in
Speaker 8: the streets. And now it's time to essentially rid ourselves
Speaker 8: of as many black people as possible.
Speaker 1: Mobs of white men are now roaming around downtown Atlanta.
Speaker 8: The mob of terrorists grew to about ten thousand men
Speaker 8: and boys. They knew exactly where.
Speaker 2: To go.
Speaker 1: Across the Peachtree Business District. Straining with rush hour, they
Speaker 1: wreak havoc.
Speaker 8: There was a young black man named Frank Smith who
Speaker 8: was a messenger, and he was trying to get back
Speaker 8: to wherever his office was in the business district. They
Speaker 8: grabbed him, they murdered him. They threw one man off
Speaker 8: the for Side Street bridge onto the railroad track. They
Speaker 8: pulled people off street cars and beat them, killed them.
Speaker 1: It's nightfall now.
Speaker 8: This assault, this murder, this pillage continued. They dragged bodies
Speaker 8: of their victims to the base of the statue that
Speaker 8: still exists on for Syde Street of Henry Grady.
Speaker 1: Grady was another white supremacist journalist.
Speaker 8: He was revered by white citizens in Atlanta, particularly.
Speaker 1: A precursor to Smith and Howell.
Speaker 8: He was a symbol of what they were a to
Speaker 8: achieve in terms of leadership, in terms of dominance of
Speaker 8: white Atlantas in the city of Atlanta and really Georgia
Speaker 8: and throughout the South.
Speaker 1: In the Atlanta night, the vicious crowd spreads out from
Speaker 1: downtown towards residential areas of the city.
Speaker 8: The terrorists were actually headed to the Auburn Avenue community.
Speaker 1: That's Eunice's neighborhood. Her home is right on the border
Speaker 1: between white and black Atlanta. There the Hunting's wait trapped inside.
Speaker 8: They were in their home looking out the window, and
Speaker 8: mister Hunting, who was ready to defend his family, defend
Speaker 8: his home against the rioters if necessary.
Speaker 1: I wonder where Unice is at this time. Are she
Speaker 1: and her brother hiding someplace? Does she hear the crowd
Speaker 1: of angry men? Is she peeping through the shutters? At
Speaker 1: the last minute, the mob suddenly stops a few houses
Speaker 1: before her home. The ringleaders declare that homes in this
Speaker 1: part of town seem too nice for negroes to live in,
Speaker 1: and so the mob moves on, bringing destruction and violence
Speaker 1: to someone else's door.
Speaker 8: So it moved east to what's called the Fourth War
Speaker 8: in Atlanta that's populated by working class and poor blacks.
Speaker 8: This is thousands of attackers moving into that community to
Speaker 8: essentially destroy homes kill people. The residents repel the angry mob.
Speaker 8: They were also in their homes, weapons in hand, ready
Speaker 8: to defend themselves if the mob should get to them.
Speaker 1: The terror in Atlanta lasts for another three full days.
Speaker 8: Many many more were killed.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Georgia's governor calls in the militia and the violence
Speaker 1: in the center of the city starts to die down.
Speaker 8: No one really knows how many African Americans died. The
Speaker 8: estimate is between fifty to one hundred, and perhaps even more,
Speaker 8: and in many cases the bodies were spirited away, they disappeared.
Speaker 8: People did not want their dead to be associated with
Speaker 8: the riot because even though they were the victims, they
Speaker 8: feared that there would be consequences.
Speaker 1: The fallout of the attacks in Atlanta went well beyond
Speaker 1: those three days in late September.
Speaker 8: Even after the carnage and the murders, you still had
Speaker 8: the repercussions of the trauma of having experienced.
Speaker 1: That Atlanta could rebuild, It could become the place I
Speaker 1: would excitedly visit as a teenager many years later. But
Speaker 1: what about the idea of Atlanta. It had become a
Speaker 1: place that was no longer safe. It's clear Atlanta and
Speaker 1: its Black community would never be the same.
Speaker 8: Most people think about the Great Migration as being a
Speaker 8: movement of African American men, women, and children from the
Speaker 8: rural south to the urban north, but you had variations
Speaker 8: of that. You had what occurred and the aftermath of
Speaker 8: the nineteen oh six Atlanta race massacre. African Americans moving
Speaker 8: from the urban south on north to the meccas to
Speaker 8: the big cities where they felt they could be safer,
Speaker 8: even though for sure racism was present in the North,
Speaker 8: but they felt they would not be under the constant
Speaker 8: threat of assault that they were in the South.
Speaker 1: More than five thousand black people left the city as
Speaker 1: a result of the massacre. The Huntings never returned to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: When I try to understand the impact the events in
Speaker 1: Atlanta had on seven year old Unis, I think back
Speaker 1: to a night I experienced in my own childhood when
Speaker 1: my family home burned to the ground. I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: so a little older than Unice, and the fire was
Speaker 1: an accident. But what I remember is not having time
Speaker 1: to grab clothes for my brother, so he was standing
Speaker 1: outside in his underwear. I remember that it took a
Speaker 1: long time for the fire department to show up but
Speaker 1: my mother says they arrived quickly. It didn't feel like it.
Speaker 1: These kinds of events always change you in some way.
Speaker 1: I keep a full outfit in my purse near my
Speaker 1: bedside now in case of emergencies. The details of the
Speaker 1: fire have softened in my memory, but the results of
Speaker 1: the night remain sharp. The Huntings joined millions of others
Speaker 1: in a great migration away from the South. Addie and
Speaker 1: William packed up their family for New York. Unus may
Speaker 1: have been too young to know the full significance of
Speaker 1: what has happened, but Atlanta will stay with her. She'll
Speaker 1: later recall the proximity of the attacks of family members
Speaker 1: and write vividly about the Georgia she'd experienced all around
Speaker 1: her before the violence of that night made it disappear.
Speaker 1: For both Eunice and her little brother Alphaeus, their experiences
Speaker 1: here would seem to shape how they approach their futures,
Speaker 1: albeit in very different ways. At the turn of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, America enters an era of transition never seen
Speaker 1: before or since. And in two bedrooms in Brooklyn, New York,
Speaker 1: in the winter of nineteen oh seven, two children from
Speaker 1: two sides of the Swell of that movement are asleep.
Speaker 1: One is an eight year old Unice with her family,
Speaker 1: The Hunting's Addie William and her baby brother Alphaeus, all
Speaker 1: arrived in New York for the next chapter of their
Speaker 1: lives just a few months before. But black people escaping
Speaker 1: violent racism weren't the only people on the move during
Speaker 1: this era. Millions of new immigrant families are reaching US
Speaker 1: soil too, also looking for new chapters, many of them
Speaker 1: via New York. A few streets away from Unice, in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn that winter night sleeps a young Italian boy and
Speaker 1: his family.
Speaker 5: Lucky Lucciano, arrives in the United States as a young
Speaker 5: boy from the western coast of Sicily.
Speaker 1: Lucky is just ten years old when he comes to Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: These two sleeping children aren't destined to cross paths just yet.
Speaker 1: They'll both awake to very different realities before their two
Speaker 1: paths come together, and soon Lucky's family will be off again,
Speaker 1: this time just a few miles across the Hudson to
Speaker 1: Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Speaker 5: Lower East Manhattan is crammed with immigrants. At this point
Speaker 5: in time, it was predominantly Jewish and Italian extraction, all
Speaker 5: shoved into one tiny area of ten story and more tenements.
Speaker 1: If you've seen films like Gangs of New York or
Speaker 1: Once Upon a Time in America, you can probably picture
Speaker 1: Lower East Manhattan at this time, overcrowded, noisy, new people
Speaker 1: appearing daily in a neighborhood becoming known as Little Italy.
Speaker 1: Lucky's family has come to New York in the midst
Speaker 1: of what's known as the Great Arrival. Millions more Italian
Speaker 1: immigrants will relocate to the US, most from the south
Speaker 1: of Italy, escaping epidemics and natural disasters. Many are in
Speaker 1: Little Italy, essentially looking for the same thing the Huntings
Speaker 1: are in their move to Brooklyn, a new page, fresh opportunities.
Speaker 1: But immigrants arriving in Little Italy instead find a disappointing familiarity, poverty,
Speaker 1: and a new threat too constant suspicion.
Speaker 5: The ones already established assimilated New Yorkers Americans at large
Speaker 5: viewed as a threat. Were these foreigners speaking these foreign
Speaker 5: languages with different religions. It wasn't an easy climb for
Speaker 5: those people to come up the ladder.
Speaker 1: Black upward mobility in cities like Atlanta was stopped in
Speaker 1: its tracks because of white fear and jealousy. Many immigrants
Speaker 1: ran into the same white supremacy in the form of xenophobia.
Speaker 1: But soon after arriving in Little Italy, Lucky, who at
Speaker 1: this point is still known as Salvatore Lukanya, which has
Speaker 1: a nice ring to it, actually shows he's not going
Speaker 1: to accept that this new reality is all American life
Speaker 1: can offer him.
Speaker 6: Very early on, he starts getting into trouble. He's kind
Speaker 6: of a rough kid. He's kind of a moody kid.
Speaker 1: Before long, Lucky's spending most of his days out on
Speaker 1: the bustling streets of the Lower East Side, playing truant
Speaker 1: from school and looking for action.
Speaker 5: Like many of his peers in Lower East Manhattan in
Speaker 5: the early twentieth century, coming from poverty. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 5: same old story, but very true. They wanted more.
Speaker 1: I picture Lucky and other neighborhood kids dodging the crowds,
Speaker 1: taking chances.
Speaker 6: He begins pickpocketing. He begins extorting younger kids for protection money,
Speaker 6: stealing kids lunch money.
Speaker 1: Deprived of the opportunities available to wider society, they're responsible
Speaker 1: for their own education.
Speaker 6: By the time he's a young teen, he has dropped
Speaker 6: out of school. Both his parents and the state of
Speaker 6: New York have sent him to Truancy School, but doesn't work.
Speaker 1: While Lucky has been finding his way to Truancy School, Unie,
Speaker 1: with her college educated parents, has been shown a very
Speaker 1: different path where education leads to success. First, she's taken
Speaker 1: away from Brooklyn to live in Germany with Addie and Alfais,
Speaker 1: while William remains on the road traveling with his career.
Speaker 1: Eighteen months later, Unics is back and at one of
Speaker 1: the best schools for black students in New York, and
Speaker 1: then on again to become one of the first black
Speaker 1: women to attend the prestigious Smith College. With her parents' example,
Speaker 1: she has a path to respectability and to success that
Speaker 1: Lucky just doesn't have, even with a monster of racism
Speaker 1: keeping her from certain avenues. So while she's in class
Speaker 1: learning how to become the exception to the rule in
Speaker 1: order to get ahead, Lucky Luciano continues his education in
Speaker 1: a very different way.
Speaker 5: He, like many of his peers, changed or altered their
Speaker 5: names to be more easily pronounced or more Americanized. He
Speaker 5: went with Luciano, and even still there were people had
Speaker 5: a difficult time pronouncing it. He finally changed it to
Speaker 5: Lucky keep it simple.
Speaker 1: He learns how to circumvent the rules.
Speaker 6: Luciano gets involved with the Five Points gang as a
Speaker 6: teenager selling drugs.
Speaker 5: Lucky did have some jobs. He worked as a hat
Speaker 5: delivery boy, but he was pinched at age sixteen for
Speaker 5: delivering a hat box with heroin in it.
Speaker 1: This would be Lucky's only arrest for the next two decades,
Speaker 1: but it's a significant one. With a record, he is
Speaker 1: now prevented from entering many so called respectable trades. The
Speaker 1: die has been cast, and soon Lucky ends up under
Speaker 1: the wing of some of the era's underworld leaders.
Speaker 5: He's already been mentored by financer Arnold Rostein for a
Speaker 5: tutelage in organized crime.
Speaker 1: But there's still nothing here to suggest the notorious gangster
Speaker 1: America will be reading about in newspaper headlines in the
Speaker 1: coming decades, even less so that he and Unice will
Speaker 1: somehow connect through the world of vice and crime. With
Speaker 1: her smith college education and her parents' legacy behind her,
Speaker 1: she's far from that life. For all her experiences and advantages.
Speaker 1: By the time America reaches the nineteen twenties, Unice is
Speaker 1: kind of separated from the realities of average Black American life.
Speaker 1: But that's about to change because Unice is headed uptown
Speaker 1: towards Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance. By the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: Harlem was referred to as being the capital of the
Speaker 1: Black world, also known as the Mecca. Unice's education can
Speaker 1: only shield her for so long. She's about to discover
Speaker 1: a world that was much more familiar to Lucky Lugiano
Speaker 1: than it was to her.
Speaker 8: Black Harlem was not wealthy or elite as in other
Speaker 8: parts of the country. The majority of the black community
Speaker 8: were imparvished and struggling.
Speaker 1: How much of what we know about Eunice's childhood comes
Speaker 1: from her parents' letters sent to each other and to friends.
Speaker 1: It's a frustrating distance to observe her from, but by
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, Unice begins writing her own story very carefully,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, she also changes American history. That
Speaker 1: chapter of her life too often ends up as a
Speaker 1: footnote in someone else's story, and frankly, that's a shame.
Speaker 1: Eunice's life deserves more than a quick skim. That's coming
Speaker 1: up in episode two of The Godmother. On episode one
Speaker 1: of The Godmother, you.
Speaker 3: Heard Marilyn Greenwald. I'm a professor Emerita of journalism at
Speaker 3: Ohio University, and I'm the author of bi biograph, including
Speaker 3: one of Eunice Hunt and Carter.
Speaker 8: My name is doctor Clarissa Merik Harris, and I am
Speaker 8: a tenured professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 8: I am a native Atlanta and so that sparked curiosity
Speaker 8: in me the stories that I should know that I don't,
Speaker 8: and I wanted to learn those stories and share that history.
Speaker 6: I am Claire White and I am the director of
Speaker 6: Education at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas. I
Speaker 6: grew up in Las Vegas, which kind of gives me
Speaker 6: a leg up in that regard, although the number of
Speaker 6: organized crime groups that we've had in our city certainly
Speaker 6: will never rival a city like New York.
Speaker 5: My name is Christian Sipolini and I am an author
Speaker 5: and a historian with a specialty in the fields of
Speaker 5: true crime, organized crime, and cartel history.
Speaker 1: My name is Leah Carter.
Speaker 7: I am Eunice Carter's great granddaughter. Her son Lyle is
Speaker 7: my dad's father. Unis influenced my grandfather and he influenced
Speaker 7: my dad, and my dad influenced me, not that I
Speaker 7: have a grand unified theory of that exactly.
Speaker 1: The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: from Novel, visit novel Dot Audio. The Godmother is hosted
Speaker 1: and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hamid.
Speaker 1: Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior and Zianna Yusuf.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Ajua Jima Broumpong. Additional story editing from
Speaker 1: Max O'Brien and Mitha Lee Raw. Our researcher is Zianna Yusuf.
Speaker 1: Additional research from Mohammad Ahmad. David Waters is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw, Sound design,
Speaker 1: mixing and by Nicholas Alexander. Our score was written, performed
Speaker 1: and recorded by Jeff Parker. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander
Speaker 1: and David Waters. Production management and endless patients from Sharie Houston,
Speaker 1: Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact checking by Fendel Fulton
Speaker 1: and Dania Suleiman. Story development by Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne,
Speaker 1: Aseana Yusuff Willard Foxen is our Creative Director of Development.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Leah Carter, Stephen Carter, Angela J. Davis,
Speaker 1: Andrew Fernley, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebtty, Katherine Godfrey, Nadia Maidie,
Speaker 1: Amalia Sortland, Sean Glenn, Neil Krishnan, Julia Bromberg, Katrina Norvelle,
Speaker 1: Carly Frankel, and all the team at w Emmy Novel