From the Black Hand to the Numbers Game: Remembering “the Rackets” in the North End

By James Pasto

The Black Hand

In the early twentieth century, as Italian immigrants established themselves in the North End, some individuals engaged in extortion through a practice known as the Black Hand. Anonymous letters, often marked with a black hand, skull, or similar symbol, demanded payment under threat of violence or property destruction. Their targets were frequently fellow immigrants who owned small businesses or had accumulated modest savings. In January 1922, a North End resident who had received threatening letters demanding money was murdered outside his home on Unity Street. The subsequent trial of seven defendants, held that summer, attracted widespread attention and resulted in two convictions for second-degree murder. Such violence generated fear but also prompted resistance. George Scigliano, a prominent North End attorney and state legislator, had earlier helped organize vigilance committees of neighborhood residents who cooperated with police and encouraged victims to report extortion attempts. Unlike the more enduring rackets that subsequently developed, Black Hand extortion depended primarily on threats against residents rather than established relationships within neighborhood life.

Prohibition

National Prohibition (1920–1933) brought new opportunities for illegal enterprise. Competition over the distribution of alcohol generated conflicts between local operators and racketeering networks from outside the neighborhood, sometimes resulting in deadly violence. On December 22, 1931, a confrontation between North End racketeers and members of an Irish gang from South Boston ended in a shooting inside an office building on Hanover Street, leaving two men dead. This conflict was part of a broader struggle occurring in cities across the country, as Italian American racket organizations, often allied with Jewish racketeers, challenged established rivals and secured an increasingly independent position within the nation's underworld. Although these conflicts attracted considerable attention, they did not define everyday life for most North End residents.

The numbers game

Following the repeal of Prohibition, illegal gambling became a more enduring source of revenue. Particularly widespread was the numbers game, a daily lottery in which participants placed small bets on numbers derived from published horse-racing results. North End gambling networks employed runners and collectors who operated throughout Boston and its surrounding suburbs, often benefiting from police protection and political connections. For many participants, the game was a familiar form of small-stakes wagering; for its organizers, it provided a steady source of income with less open violence than the illegal alcohol trade. The organization and operation of this gambling network, including its relationships with local police and political authorities, were described in detail by William Foote Whyte in Chapter 4 of his 1943 ethnography, Street Corner Society, based on fieldwork conducted in the North End between 1936 and 1940.

A racket subculture

These operations were part of a broader Italian American neighborhood subculture resembling what sociologist Irving Spergel described as a racket subculture. In the North End, the rackets existed alongside conventional family, business, and neighborhood institutions and were governed by informal rules and expectations. Adult figures associated with the rackets exercised authority over younger residents, maintained relationships with local families, and discouraged burglary, drug dealing, and other forms of street crime within the neighborhood. This system of informal social control helped maintain neighborhood safety, even as those exercising such authority engaged in illegal enterprises themselves. Unlike the Black Hand extortionists of an earlier generation, the later racketeers were embedded in a system of neighborhood relationships that both supported their activities and placed expectations upon their conduct.

The state lottery and the FBI

The establishment of the Massachusetts State Lottery in 1972, followed by its introduction of a daily numbers game in 1976, brought the state into direct competition with illegal gambling operations. Yet the North End rackets retained loyal customers and extensive networks of bookmakers. Their eventual decline resulted from the combined effects of legal competition and federal law enforcement. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the FBI intensified its investigation of racket operations, using electronic surveillance and the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to target criminal organizations rather than individual bookmakers. Major arrests on September 19, 1983, followed by racketeering convictions in February 1986, effectively dismantled the North End's dominant gambling organization.

The FBI's role, however, was deeply compromised by corruption within its own ranks. While federal agents pursued Italian American racketeers, other agents maintained improper relationships with members of a rival Irish American criminal organization, providing protection, leaking confidential information, and obstructing investigations. These activities eventually resulted in federal investigations, congressional hearings, and criminal convictions, including the conviction of a former FBI agent in 2002. The revelations exposed how law enforcement officials had helped protect one criminal organization while pursuing another.

One part of a larger history

The history of “the rackets” in the North End thus reflects changing economic opportunities, neighborhood relationships, informal social control, community resistance, law enforcement efforts, and institutional failures. Yet it is only one part of a much larger history of community organization, resilience, and survival in the face of immigrant marginalization and the responses it provoked.