“In the 1930s and ’40s, there was a National Brotherhood of Policy Kings that permeated practically every Black community in the country but especially Chicago, the “Policy Capital of the World…In the world of Policy, its Kings were the original “Good Fellows”, not because they were gangsters, which they were not, but because they fed the hungry and clothed the naked as virtual “Robin Hoods” and gave their people a sense of security…
It was the last days of the Prohibition era and the last days of the underworld’s principle source of income, bootlegged liquor. To make up for part of that lost income, white underworld bosses across the country launched bloody gun battles against the Policy Kings for control of the lucrative gambling rackets in America’s Black Belts.
In Harlem the enemy was Dutch Schultz, in Cleveland the Mayfield Road Gang, in St. Louis it was Egan’s Rats and in Bronzeville, it was renegade factions of the Al Capone mob.” (From KINGS)