November 2, 2020 • 24 mins
Gordon Williams Jr breaks down his dad's life as a hustler and drug dealer. New characters associated with the party and the heist are introduced like Buddy Gloss and Frank Moten, who was known as the "Black Godfather". JD Hudson, the lead detective on the robbery case, reveals a shocking discovery.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
As my research took me deeper into the heightst that
happened that night, I realized there were two people who
had a clear view of the events and who were
directly involved. One was J. D. Hudson, whom you met
in the last episode. The other was Chicken Man, a
hustler who was blamed for the heist and consequently had
(00:22):
a hit put on him by the higher ups in
the world of black organized crime. These two guys were
like two sides of the same coin, and just like J. D. Hudson,
I knew that in order to fully understand this world,
these players, and these events, I would have to find
out who Chicken Man was too, who he really was,
(00:44):
and how his life led him to be in the crosshairs.
The life of the hustler with my dad was he
liked nice things, he liked to dress well, he liked
behind cars. So in order to have those things, he
hustled me listen then, don't hear that? And the press
(01:04):
of made them bat We started moving a lout of marijuana.
Shipments start coming in really really big. I'm talking about
two tons three times. I matter one of the girls
who would come by and say, I don't know his
name both I think he called Chicken Man man from
my Heart Radio and Doghouse Pictures. This is Fight Night.
I'm Jeff Keating. In episode one, we found out that
(01:32):
Chicken Man had been killed in a supposed gangling assassination
according to the New York Times and numerous other sources. Luckily,
I was able to track down his son, Gordon Williams Jr.
To help me fill in the missing pieces of his
dad's story. Well, the early year is where my dad
growing up. My dad was in the military, of course,
(01:54):
but I was so young, I really don't remember his
military years. But when he came home, Dad when his
hustling started, and it started as bootlegging, wound shining, and
that turned into number writing, which is now a forming
of Georgia Lottery, because Georgia Lottery ran a lot of
the number bookies out of the business. That's right. Chicken
(02:17):
Man's first major source of income as a hustler was
the illegal lottery, also known at that time is playing
the numbers or the bug. You get the individual who
plays the numbers, And they called my dad, Hey, listen,
my numbers already, come pick them up, just like cash
three today you go buy and you pick your numbers up.
Here's the story in Dr Maurice Hopson. The lottery in
(02:40):
the black community, often known as the bug, was a
real source of income. Someone will play a number, they
will be able to win three to four hundred times
the amount that they put down. It allowed for the
lucky ones to actually gettin some income to do some
of the things that they wanted to do. I mean
whether it's to pay bills or buy a new car
or whatever whatnot. So it was a real stream of income,
(03:01):
and it was believed to be a stream of income,
but it was a risky way to make a living.
And Chicken Man knew that the easiest way to get
busted for running numbers was getting caught with the actual
list of players names and their picks, known as the ribbon.
But Chicken Man figured out an innovative way to get
rid of the evidence. He printed his ribbon on flash
(03:23):
paper and he wrote these numbers down on this piece
of paper and lit it with a cigarette lighter and
threw it in the air and there was no ashes.
And I was like, oh my god, this is so.
I was gonna back back then, I was in school,
I was gonna take it the show and tail saying
you know, I was a show to people that hey,
I got paper that can disappear in the air. But
(03:46):
that became real popular because if you get caught with
those not what you're going to jail. Before the Georgia
Lottery essentially legitimized number running in the state and forced
hustlers like Chicken Man to look for other ways to
make money. The numbers were an important source of revenue
within the black community. Here's Dr Hobson. The lottery becomes
(04:06):
not only a source of revenue, it becomes a vehicle
to an aspect of prosperity in a particular kind of way,
and so people embody the numbers. The number runners or
men and women in the community were seen as pull
as in the community because they always have money. They
made sure that people, you know I had food, They
buried the day, they took care of the sick, They
(04:27):
gave little kids money. So even though it's criminal activity,
they're not seen as criminals per se. One of the
biggest lottery men in Atlanta was Wesley Merit. He was
known around town as a banker because not only did
he finance and profit from his illegal operations. He also
loaned money to members of the black community who couldn't
(04:49):
go to an actual bank. Here's Chicken Man's son, Gordon
Williams Jr. Western Mayor was like the mayor of Atlanta
is one of the biggest bankers in Atlanta. You know
what I mean. Everybody to Wesley Merrit for everything. If
you needed help, you needed some money, West the Merit
will help you out. He would help you. You would
have to pay him back, of course. But Western Merritt
was a very good guy, a good friend of my dad.
(05:12):
My dad respected him. He was not a very flamboy
and a flashy kind of person. Quiet man loved where
you know, a colored white shirt, starched blue overalls, and
shine shoes. And so that was his trademark is you know,
to be clean but not flashy. Merritt was also known
for taking care of the sick, for burying the dead,
for sending children to schools, for feeding the hungry. He
(05:34):
was considered to be the kind of person who could
prop up of community. He was known for putting lights
on streets that didn't have lights. He was instrumental in
trying to help roads get paved in the black community.
He was committed and dedicated to Black communities flourishing and
was willing to step in and ways in which the
city of Atlanta had failed black communities. Even Detective J. D. Hudson,
(05:59):
a no nonsense cop whose job it was to chase
down and arrest criminals, saw the value in hustlers like
chicken Men and Wesley Merrit taking care of their own community.
You take a hustler and put them here, and then
you take the president and hustler hustling put them over here.
The two divent. It is so the best citizen in
(06:22):
the city. They go to church, they spend money at church,
They feed the hungred, they be rent, they support the
wime seated Red Cross. They send that you're in the college,
but they don't hear. The hustlers and the press have
made them bad people, hi criminals. Wesley Merrit also owned
(06:45):
a pool hall on Hunter Street that was a very
popular meeting place for diverse cross section of the black community.
You have your ministers that would come that way. You
would have your entertainers who would come to town. They
would frequent Wesley Merits pool hall. You have your politicians
that would come to the spot. You have your businessmen
shoot a couple of rounds of pool and have a
(07:06):
couple of drinks, smoke a cigar or something of that nature.
But it also brought in the hustling community in Atlanta,
I mean bootleggers, other number runners, you know, pimping and pandering,
all aspects of the game, money, laundry, all kind of
things took place in these pool halls, and all kinds
of characters hung around this pool hall, hustlers we've already mentioned,
(07:29):
like Fireball and Buddy Gloss and of course Chicken Man.
J D remembers the first time he ever met Chicken
Man at a restaurant across the street from the historically
black Clark Atlanta University. But it wasn't what you call
a friendly encounter. That makes Chicken Man. When I was
a rook at policeman, I was in a Capital restaurant,
(07:52):
a frostrate from the school and in a Hubcami and
asked me to get out of my seat. They did nothing,
And I guess, look at us is because that's truly
in the streets and spina who got to spend, You
got spreended. And that was the first time that you
met Chicken Man. Yeah, he was. He was devided god
of the Husbus. Papa Chicken Man was with Short Papa
(08:21):
a k a. Robert Vambrose and they were actually hitting
on j D's girlfriend. J D gave Short Papa quite
the beating after being disrespected, which led to Chicken Man
testifying against j D and court as a witness to
the assault. But j D never held a grudge against
him because Chicken Man told the truth and j D
(08:42):
valued honesty. The Chicken Man's testimony led to j d's suspension.
The two would eventually form a friendship. The hit on
Chicken Man was still weighing on my mind. After spending
time with his son, Gordon Williams Jr. I was starting
(09:05):
to develop a real picture of the man who hosted
the infamous Fight Night after party. The robbery of this
party would ultimately get him killed, according to a New
York Times article. But was the hit justified? Had he
organized the robbery or was he just another victim? To
find out, I needed to learn more about Chicken Man's
(09:27):
past and his life as a hustler. My dad always
was chasing a dollar from Bootleg and Moon China to
write numbers to drugs and it became lucrative for him,
and it helped us have a good lifestyle. Also, the
lag and fall suss like that you're big on the
(09:48):
top and you get locked up, you lose a big set,
you get overhead and you go down, and you get
the work back up and you go down. I think
that with the life of rustle, the life of the
hustler with my dad was he liked nice things. He
loved nice things, he liked to dress well, he liked jury,
he liked find cars, women. So in order to have
(10:10):
those things, he hustled, and that in turn led to
him hustling more and more. There was times that I
don't even think he would sleep. He would just go, go, go,
go go. It was phenomenal watching him just go from
doing numbers and bootleg too drugs because it was a
whole different lifestyle and the money was coming so fast.
(10:32):
The money was coming, like extremely fast into the house.
I learned from Chicken men Son that in their communities
hustling was considered a business, not a criminal activity. I
remember he was dating a lady one time called Ola May,
and she was a shoplifter and she had three daughters
and all three the door to shoplifted, and they would
(10:52):
dress up in really fine, nice clothes and they would
go to Landry Square. And I remember Ola May getting
a tuxedle for me for my junior singer pram So.
My dad, he was into a lot of different aspects
of hustling, but soon Chicken Man started getting into the
(11:15):
far more risky and lucrative world of drug dealing. It
all started with smuggling marijuana out of one of the
country's most notorious drug mechas, Miami, Florida. My dad, he
liked Miami. My dad was one of the only black
members in the Jockey Club in Miami. They only had
three black members Sammy Davis Junior, Muhammad Ali and my Dad.
(11:37):
That's how powerful this guy was. The Jockey Club and
the Cricket Club. But he was one of the three
black members in that era. And and liking to go
to Miami, he met drug dealers. He met this one
particular guy. And this guy was a record producer, real
powerful guy in Miami, real powerful. He had marijuana connections,
cocaine connection and he liked my dad. He loved my dad. Well,
(12:01):
I speak Spanish fluently because I married a Cuban. I
would translate for my dad. So we were by the
marijuana from him and we would bringing to Atlanta, we
take it to Chattanooga, we take it up to Detroit,
and doing that we started moving a lout of marijuana.
They started talking about bigger shipments, and shipments started coming
(12:23):
in really really big. I'm talking about two tons, three
tons of marijuana. Chicken Men's business was booming, but it
wasn't without some close calls. Here's Gordon Williams Jr. With
his car up with marijuana, and we're in Florida, because
that's what most of our business all came from. And
(12:45):
my dad had bought a condo in Inverary, which is
owned by Jackie Gleasa back at the time, really exclusive neighborhood,
really exclusive, and we were getting ready to leave to
come to Atlanta. In Florida, you know what they're saying everywhere.
He got stuck in the sand with the marijuana and
we were trying to figure out how we're gonna get
out of this, and a cop came along and helped
(13:08):
us get out of the hole without accident, not a question,
and and my dad was like, oh God, man, I
can't believe this. And the cop pulled us out of
the sand and said, y'all have a great day. This
wasn't the only example of chicken me and leading a
charmed life. Well, we had got so much marijuana that
(13:30):
there was marijuana still left in Atlanta, but we were
in Miami picking up another thousand pounds of marijuana. So
we're taking the back rolls coming through Cluiston, Florida, because
we didn't want to go to Turnpike. So the van
smelt like marijuana because the van was full full, I
mean from the back all the way to the front.
So we're taking twenty nine coming through Okachobee, coming up
(13:52):
the back rows and there's a cow in the middle
of the highway and we damn smash it. And we
smashed the cow. My dad said, oh, ship, what are
we gonna do? He said, well, let's go to the
gas station. The water was coming out, was running hot
and everything, and we parked there and we asked the
guy there, could he fix the van? He said, yeah,
we actually did have a car we could use. You know, sure,
(14:12):
I got a car you can use. We transferred the
marijuana right there in the back of the gas station
from the van to the car, put it in the
trunk and in the back seat and drove to Atlanta
with bales of marijuana in the back seat. Chicken Man's
luck also seemed to extend to those closest to him.
My dad had friends who got robbed, and he had
(14:33):
friends who got killed as a result of the drug business,
but not an own circle. Never an own circle. My
dad never carried a gun, never carried a gun, and
whenever he wanted to do business, he never had a pistol,
and the people who he did business with never had
guns because if there was a gun, president that deal
(14:54):
was off. Never used the scale, trusted that it was
a thousand pounds or whatever it was. Give them money,
they would never count it. That's it was that type
of trust between the drug dealers and my dad. It
was always trust. It was you know, I knew your family,
you knew my family. I knew your kids, you knew
my kids. I knew your wife, you know my wife.
(15:14):
I was starting to get an idea of who Chicken
Man was and the life he led as a hustler.
But I was curious how did he get his nickname.
The way my dad got the name Chicken Man was
that was Pascal Brothers. Of course it's no longer there anymore.
But my dad would buy the young girls chicken sandwiches.
So when the girls would come by and he saw
(15:36):
a girl that he fancy or he was trying to
get with, he is that baby he wanted chicken sandwich,
and yeah, baby, give me a chicken sandwich. So he
will buy him a chicken sandwich. So in turn, the
girls who would come by and say, I don't know
his name, but I think they called him chicken Man.
And that's how the name started. That chicken stand would
grow into Pascal's Restaurants, famous for their fried chicken. Pascals
(15:59):
became a main on Hunter Street. Here's Dr Hobson. Paschal
started between two brothers whose mother taught them to cook.
Both of the brothers began to cook, but one of
them married and basically would cook food for the youth
at the Atlantic University Center out of his kitchen at home. Well,
it got to be overwhelming, particularly with this student movement
(16:21):
and all kind of different things. The Pascal brothers realized
that they can that they can really make this into
a restaurant. Their location on West Hunter Street, which is
not Martin Luther King Drive was on the edge of
the Atlantic University Center. So of course it's going to
be overwhelming black and said the historically black part of town.
So the thing about it is Paschals would allow for
(16:45):
political folk to kind of come in and have discussions.
The one caveat was that you had to order the
fried chicken and you had to tell everyone that the
fried chicken was the best fried chicken in the land.
Pascal's was the meeting place for black people. Anybody who
was somebody would pass through Pascals. This is Bunny Jackson Ransom,
(17:08):
the former wife of Maynard Jackson, who was the first
black mayor of Atlanta. There was a kind of bar restaurant.
Then you could go sit down and have breakfast, and
if you sit there long enough, anybody who was anybody
who was black, we're going to pass through Pascals. Then
there was a room further down the hall where you
(17:30):
could go and have a private party. And of course
there was a hotel that came later, Pastor's Hotel. I
think I might have had a couple of parties there,
like the ladies would have their Bridge Club parties there.
Pascal's had a wide variety of clientele that would come there.
It was hustlers, it was politicians, it was businessman, it
(17:51):
was family. It was people like Chicken Man that would
come for the great fried chicken and the great conversation
and sometimes business deal is in the back room. The
first time that I heard the word hustler was when
my dad took me to see the Hustler with Paul Newman.
I'm gonna beat him, Mr. I beat him all night
and I'm gonna beat him all day. But this was
(18:14):
something completely different. These hustlers were from a world I
knew nothing about, and I was about to get a
first hand education. Everything I heard about Chicken Man told
me he was highly intelligent and extremely resourceful. Here's his son,
(18:36):
Gordon Williams Jr. Whatever it was he set out to do,
he did it. We were hollyday marijuana who wanted to
be just like a trucking business, so we bought cars
with CBS and I mean with false bottom gas tanks.
He did stuff that was way before people was thinking
about it, and I was like, this guy is really smart,
(19:00):
really really smart. When we were transporting drugs from Miami
to Atlanta, he would have one car empty, which would
be the league car and the next car would be full.
And we had CB radios and so that way we
could notify the person behind us if there's a state
trooper up or anything like that. Most of the time,
the people that were driving the cars with the drugs
(19:21):
never had a truck key. They never could open it,
and a lot of times they never knew what they
were they were transporting. So my dad would just say, listen,
you know, you want to make five three hundred dollars
to drive this car from Miami. There's such and such,
you know, don't worry about the trunk. Open the trunk.
I mean that he did that for many, many years.
J D believed that hustlers were often underestimated. But that
(19:44):
is a mistake he would never make. You see, please
let them think the hustles are done. But there's some
response people you want to need in your life. I
always recognize that that's about to catch him. I never
thought they were done. When it was announced that Muhammad
Ali would fight Jerry Korey in Atlanta in October of
(20:05):
nineteen seventy, the big time hustlers in New York thought
it would be a perfect time to throw an after
hours party and Chicken Man's friend Fireball, asked him to
help organize and host the party. Five artists of guys
lived in Atlanta in the Northeast area that and so
called Terment Bottom area, and left Atlanta and went to
(20:27):
New York and the game hustler, drug dealer um lot
remains and the five all want to throw a thick
party and Atlanta after the fright. So he uh present
invitations and passed them out to all. It may have
been Fab five has written up or printed these engraved
(20:52):
invitation had passed them out after the Ali fight had ended. No,
they were past about trip to the fight. Prior to
the fight. Yeah, mat fact, we were able to uh
not on to find out who had been, but they
made we learned where they were. Frank. When I spoke
(21:14):
with Gordon Williams Jr. I asked him about some of
the names involved in the party and the robbery, including
his dad's friends Fireball. Fireball was, I mean, he was
a hustler, and he was a friend of my dad's,
and he was somebody and my dad looked up to.
He got his name through I think trying to cook
cocaine or something like that. He got his name Fireball.
(21:36):
Another name that came up in my investigation was Buddy Gloss.
Buddy Gloss now I knew him well. I knew Buddy
Gloss well. He was a good friend of my dad
and our family. So Buddy was he was always competing
with my dad. It was it was like a competition.
If my dad didn't numbers, but he did numbers. If
my dad did marijuana, Buddy did. My dad did cocaine Buddy,
(21:59):
So they were always in competition with each other. And
also Frank Moten, a top guy in an organization often
referred to as the Black Mafia and one of the
higher level gangsters of the party. All of these names
are going to be important, but especially Frank Moten, who
was known as the Black Godfather. He was reportedly the
(22:19):
leader of the Council of Twelve, a group of top
level decision makers for black organized crime. Back at j
D's house, we had barely gotten into the story of
the robbery itself. He had told me about some of
the key players, how the party came together, and I
knew where all this was heading Chicken Man's murder at
(22:42):
the hands of the Black Mafia. So I pulled out
the article again. This is from the New York Times Wednesday, October.
Informed sources associated with the police department suggested today that
Williams is dead as there was sold of a contract
released on him Gangland Terminology for an arrangement of his murder.
(23:06):
But what j D told me next would change everything. Okay,
so he see this article. I thinks we're going be
done within two days of the robberts. Jay was right,
that's wrong, Oh thin Man, Jesse May, It's a lot.
(23:28):
Now Chicken Man was alive. I couldn't believe what I
was hearing. The key to understanding what really happened the
night of the Ali Quarry fight was alive. Now I
had to track Chicken Man down and get his side
(23:48):
of the story. Fight Night is a joint production from
My Heart Radio, Opacker Media and Doghouse Pictures in association
with Psychopia Pictures. Produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive
producers are Will Packer, James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush,
(24:11):
Lars Jacobsen, and Noel Brown. Supervising producers Taylor Shacoyne. Story
editors are Noel Brown and Dan Bush. Written by Jeff
Keating and Jim Roberts, edited by Matt Owen. Mixing and
sound designed by Jeremiah Kolonnie Prescott. Music written and performed
by The Diamond Street Players. Additional music by Ben Lovett.
(24:32):
Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and Video Tape Collection,
Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries. Special thanks to
Dr Maurice Hobson and David Davis
As my research took me deeper into the heightst that
happened that night, I realized there were two people who
had a clear view of the events and who were
directly involved. One was J. D. Hudson, whom you met
in the last episode. The other was Chicken Man, a
hustler who was blamed for the heist and consequently had
(00:22):
a hit put on him by the higher ups in
the world of black organized crime. These two guys were
like two sides of the same coin, and just like J. D. Hudson,
I knew that in order to fully understand this world,
these players, and these events, I would have to find
out who Chicken Man was too, who he really was,
(00:44):
and how his life led him to be in the crosshairs.
The life of the hustler with my dad was he
liked nice things, he liked to dress well, he liked
behind cars. So in order to have those things, he
hustled me listen then, don't hear that? And the press
(01:04):
of made them bat We started moving a lout of marijuana.
Shipments start coming in really really big. I'm talking about
two tons three times. I matter one of the girls
who would come by and say, I don't know his
name both I think he called Chicken Man man from
my Heart Radio and Doghouse Pictures. This is Fight Night.
I'm Jeff Keating. In episode one, we found out that
(01:32):
Chicken Man had been killed in a supposed gangling assassination
according to the New York Times and numerous other sources. Luckily,
I was able to track down his son, Gordon Williams Jr.
To help me fill in the missing pieces of his
dad's story. Well, the early year is where my dad
growing up. My dad was in the military, of course,
(01:54):
but I was so young, I really don't remember his
military years. But when he came home, Dad when his
hustling started, and it started as bootlegging, wound shining, and
that turned into number writing, which is now a forming
of Georgia Lottery, because Georgia Lottery ran a lot of
the number bookies out of the business. That's right. Chicken
(02:17):
Man's first major source of income as a hustler was
the illegal lottery, also known at that time is playing
the numbers or the bug. You get the individual who
plays the numbers, And they called my dad, Hey, listen,
my numbers already, come pick them up, just like cash
three today you go buy and you pick your numbers up.
Here's the story in Dr Maurice Hopson. The lottery in
(02:40):
the black community, often known as the bug, was a
real source of income. Someone will play a number, they
will be able to win three to four hundred times
the amount that they put down. It allowed for the
lucky ones to actually gettin some income to do some
of the things that they wanted to do. I mean
whether it's to pay bills or buy a new car
or whatever whatnot. So it was a real stream of income,
(03:01):
and it was believed to be a stream of income,
but it was a risky way to make a living.
And Chicken Man knew that the easiest way to get
busted for running numbers was getting caught with the actual
list of players names and their picks, known as the ribbon.
But Chicken Man figured out an innovative way to get
rid of the evidence. He printed his ribbon on flash
(03:23):
paper and he wrote these numbers down on this piece
of paper and lit it with a cigarette lighter and
threw it in the air and there was no ashes.
And I was like, oh my god, this is so.
I was gonna back back then, I was in school,
I was gonna take it the show and tail saying
you know, I was a show to people that hey,
I got paper that can disappear in the air. But
(03:46):
that became real popular because if you get caught with
those not what you're going to jail. Before the Georgia
Lottery essentially legitimized number running in the state and forced
hustlers like Chicken Man to look for other ways to
make money. The numbers were an important source of revenue
within the black community. Here's Dr Hobson. The lottery becomes
(04:06):
not only a source of revenue, it becomes a vehicle
to an aspect of prosperity in a particular kind of way,
and so people embody the numbers. The number runners or
men and women in the community were seen as pull
as in the community because they always have money. They
made sure that people, you know I had food, They
buried the day, they took care of the sick, They
(04:27):
gave little kids money. So even though it's criminal activity,
they're not seen as criminals per se. One of the
biggest lottery men in Atlanta was Wesley Merit. He was
known around town as a banker because not only did
he finance and profit from his illegal operations. He also
loaned money to members of the black community who couldn't
(04:49):
go to an actual bank. Here's Chicken Man's son, Gordon
Williams Jr. Western Mayor was like the mayor of Atlanta
is one of the biggest bankers in Atlanta. You know
what I mean. Everybody to Wesley Merrit for everything. If
you needed help, you needed some money, West the Merit
will help you out. He would help you. You would
have to pay him back, of course. But Western Merritt
was a very good guy, a good friend of my dad.
(05:12):
My dad respected him. He was not a very flamboy
and a flashy kind of person. Quiet man loved where
you know, a colored white shirt, starched blue overalls, and
shine shoes. And so that was his trademark is you know,
to be clean but not flashy. Merritt was also known
for taking care of the sick, for burying the dead,
for sending children to schools, for feeding the hungry. He
(05:34):
was considered to be the kind of person who could
prop up of community. He was known for putting lights
on streets that didn't have lights. He was instrumental in
trying to help roads get paved in the black community.
He was committed and dedicated to Black communities flourishing and
was willing to step in and ways in which the
city of Atlanta had failed black communities. Even Detective J. D. Hudson,
(05:59):
a no nonsense cop whose job it was to chase
down and arrest criminals, saw the value in hustlers like
chicken Men and Wesley Merrit taking care of their own community.
You take a hustler and put them here, and then
you take the president and hustler hustling put them over here.
The two divent. It is so the best citizen in
(06:22):
the city. They go to church, they spend money at church,
They feed the hungred, they be rent, they support the
wime seated Red Cross. They send that you're in the college,
but they don't hear. The hustlers and the press have
made them bad people, hi criminals. Wesley Merrit also owned
(06:45):
a pool hall on Hunter Street that was a very
popular meeting place for diverse cross section of the black community.
You have your ministers that would come that way. You
would have your entertainers who would come to town. They
would frequent Wesley Merits pool hall. You have your politicians
that would come to the spot. You have your businessmen
shoot a couple of rounds of pool and have a
(07:06):
couple of drinks, smoke a cigar or something of that nature.
But it also brought in the hustling community in Atlanta,
I mean bootleggers, other number runners, you know, pimping and pandering,
all aspects of the game, money, laundry, all kind of
things took place in these pool halls, and all kinds
of characters hung around this pool hall, hustlers we've already mentioned,
(07:29):
like Fireball and Buddy Gloss and of course Chicken Man.
J D remembers the first time he ever met Chicken
Man at a restaurant across the street from the historically
black Clark Atlanta University. But it wasn't what you call
a friendly encounter. That makes Chicken Man. When I was
a rook at policeman, I was in a Capital restaurant,
(07:52):
a frostrate from the school and in a Hubcami and
asked me to get out of my seat. They did nothing,
And I guess, look at us is because that's truly
in the streets and spina who got to spend, You
got spreended. And that was the first time that you
met Chicken Man. Yeah, he was. He was devided god
of the Husbus. Papa Chicken Man was with Short Papa
(08:21):
a k a. Robert Vambrose and they were actually hitting
on j D's girlfriend. J D gave Short Papa quite
the beating after being disrespected, which led to Chicken Man
testifying against j D and court as a witness to
the assault. But j D never held a grudge against
him because Chicken Man told the truth and j D
(08:42):
valued honesty. The Chicken Man's testimony led to j d's suspension.
The two would eventually form a friendship. The hit on
Chicken Man was still weighing on my mind. After spending
time with his son, Gordon Williams Jr. I was starting
(09:05):
to develop a real picture of the man who hosted
the infamous Fight Night after party. The robbery of this
party would ultimately get him killed, according to a New
York Times article. But was the hit justified? Had he
organized the robbery or was he just another victim? To
find out, I needed to learn more about Chicken Man's
(09:27):
past and his life as a hustler. My dad always
was chasing a dollar from Bootleg and Moon China to
write numbers to drugs and it became lucrative for him,
and it helped us have a good lifestyle. Also, the
lag and fall suss like that you're big on the
(09:48):
top and you get locked up, you lose a big set,
you get overhead and you go down, and you get
the work back up and you go down. I think
that with the life of rustle, the life of the
hustler with my dad was he liked nice things. He
loved nice things, he liked to dress well, he liked jury,
he liked find cars, women. So in order to have
(10:10):
those things, he hustled, and that in turn led to
him hustling more and more. There was times that I
don't even think he would sleep. He would just go, go, go,
go go. It was phenomenal watching him just go from
doing numbers and bootleg too drugs because it was a
whole different lifestyle and the money was coming so fast.
(10:32):
The money was coming, like extremely fast into the house.
I learned from Chicken men Son that in their communities
hustling was considered a business, not a criminal activity. I
remember he was dating a lady one time called Ola May,
and she was a shoplifter and she had three daughters
and all three the door to shoplifted, and they would
(10:52):
dress up in really fine, nice clothes and they would
go to Landry Square. And I remember Ola May getting
a tuxedle for me for my junior singer pram So.
My dad, he was into a lot of different aspects
of hustling, but soon Chicken Man started getting into the
(11:15):
far more risky and lucrative world of drug dealing. It
all started with smuggling marijuana out of one of the
country's most notorious drug mechas, Miami, Florida. My dad, he
liked Miami. My dad was one of the only black
members in the Jockey Club in Miami. They only had
three black members Sammy Davis Junior, Muhammad Ali and my Dad.
(11:37):
That's how powerful this guy was. The Jockey Club and
the Cricket Club. But he was one of the three
black members in that era. And and liking to go
to Miami, he met drug dealers. He met this one
particular guy. And this guy was a record producer, real
powerful guy in Miami, real powerful. He had marijuana connections,
cocaine connection and he liked my dad. He loved my dad. Well,
(12:01):
I speak Spanish fluently because I married a Cuban. I
would translate for my dad. So we were by the
marijuana from him and we would bringing to Atlanta, we
take it to Chattanooga, we take it up to Detroit,
and doing that we started moving a lout of marijuana.
They started talking about bigger shipments, and shipments started coming
(12:23):
in really really big. I'm talking about two tons, three
tons of marijuana. Chicken Men's business was booming, but it
wasn't without some close calls. Here's Gordon Williams Jr. With
his car up with marijuana, and we're in Florida, because
that's what most of our business all came from. And
(12:45):
my dad had bought a condo in Inverary, which is
owned by Jackie Gleasa back at the time, really exclusive neighborhood,
really exclusive, and we were getting ready to leave to
come to Atlanta. In Florida, you know what they're saying everywhere.
He got stuck in the sand with the marijuana and
we were trying to figure out how we're gonna get
out of this, and a cop came along and helped
(13:08):
us get out of the hole without accident, not a question,
and and my dad was like, oh God, man, I
can't believe this. And the cop pulled us out of
the sand and said, y'all have a great day. This
wasn't the only example of chicken me and leading a
charmed life. Well, we had got so much marijuana that
(13:30):
there was marijuana still left in Atlanta, but we were
in Miami picking up another thousand pounds of marijuana. So
we're taking the back rolls coming through Cluiston, Florida, because
we didn't want to go to Turnpike. So the van
smelt like marijuana because the van was full full, I
mean from the back all the way to the front.
So we're taking twenty nine coming through Okachobee, coming up
(13:52):
the back rows and there's a cow in the middle
of the highway and we damn smash it. And we
smashed the cow. My dad said, oh, ship, what are
we gonna do? He said, well, let's go to the
gas station. The water was coming out, was running hot
and everything, and we parked there and we asked the
guy there, could he fix the van? He said, yeah,
we actually did have a car we could use. You know, sure,
(14:12):
I got a car you can use. We transferred the
marijuana right there in the back of the gas station
from the van to the car, put it in the
trunk and in the back seat and drove to Atlanta
with bales of marijuana in the back seat. Chicken Man's
luck also seemed to extend to those closest to him.
My dad had friends who got robbed, and he had
(14:33):
friends who got killed as a result of the drug business,
but not an own circle. Never an own circle. My
dad never carried a gun, never carried a gun, and
whenever he wanted to do business, he never had a pistol,
and the people who he did business with never had
guns because if there was a gun, president that deal
(14:54):
was off. Never used the scale, trusted that it was
a thousand pounds or whatever it was. Give them money,
they would never count it. That's it was that type
of trust between the drug dealers and my dad. It
was always trust. It was you know, I knew your family,
you knew my family. I knew your kids, you knew
my kids. I knew your wife, you know my wife.
(15:14):
I was starting to get an idea of who Chicken
Man was and the life he led as a hustler.
But I was curious how did he get his nickname.
The way my dad got the name Chicken Man was
that was Pascal Brothers. Of course it's no longer there anymore.
But my dad would buy the young girls chicken sandwiches.
So when the girls would come by and he saw
(15:36):
a girl that he fancy or he was trying to
get with, he is that baby he wanted chicken sandwich,
and yeah, baby, give me a chicken sandwich. So he
will buy him a chicken sandwich. So in turn, the
girls who would come by and say, I don't know
his name, but I think they called him chicken Man.
And that's how the name started. That chicken stand would
grow into Pascal's Restaurants, famous for their fried chicken. Pascals
(15:59):
became a main on Hunter Street. Here's Dr Hobson. Paschal
started between two brothers whose mother taught them to cook.
Both of the brothers began to cook, but one of
them married and basically would cook food for the youth
at the Atlantic University Center out of his kitchen at home. Well,
it got to be overwhelming, particularly with this student movement
(16:21):
and all kind of different things. The Pascal brothers realized
that they can that they can really make this into
a restaurant. Their location on West Hunter Street, which is
not Martin Luther King Drive was on the edge of
the Atlantic University Center. So of course it's going to
be overwhelming black and said the historically black part of town.
So the thing about it is Paschals would allow for
(16:45):
political folk to kind of come in and have discussions.
The one caveat was that you had to order the
fried chicken and you had to tell everyone that the
fried chicken was the best fried chicken in the land.
Pascal's was the meeting place for black people. Anybody who
was somebody would pass through Pascals. This is Bunny Jackson Ransom,
(17:08):
the former wife of Maynard Jackson, who was the first
black mayor of Atlanta. There was a kind of bar restaurant.
Then you could go sit down and have breakfast, and
if you sit there long enough, anybody who was anybody
who was black, we're going to pass through Pascals. Then
there was a room further down the hall where you
(17:30):
could go and have a private party. And of course
there was a hotel that came later, Pastor's Hotel. I
think I might have had a couple of parties there,
like the ladies would have their Bridge Club parties there.
Pascal's had a wide variety of clientele that would come there.
It was hustlers, it was politicians, it was businessman, it
(17:51):
was family. It was people like Chicken Man that would
come for the great fried chicken and the great conversation
and sometimes business deal is in the back room. The
first time that I heard the word hustler was when
my dad took me to see the Hustler with Paul Newman.
I'm gonna beat him, Mr. I beat him all night
and I'm gonna beat him all day. But this was
(18:14):
something completely different. These hustlers were from a world I
knew nothing about, and I was about to get a
first hand education. Everything I heard about Chicken Man told
me he was highly intelligent and extremely resourceful. Here's his son,
(18:36):
Gordon Williams Jr. Whatever it was he set out to do,
he did it. We were hollyday marijuana who wanted to
be just like a trucking business, so we bought cars
with CBS and I mean with false bottom gas tanks.
He did stuff that was way before people was thinking
about it, and I was like, this guy is really smart,
(19:00):
really really smart. When we were transporting drugs from Miami
to Atlanta, he would have one car empty, which would
be the league car and the next car would be full.
And we had CB radios and so that way we
could notify the person behind us if there's a state
trooper up or anything like that. Most of the time,
the people that were driving the cars with the drugs
(19:21):
never had a truck key. They never could open it,
and a lot of times they never knew what they
were they were transporting. So my dad would just say, listen,
you know, you want to make five three hundred dollars
to drive this car from Miami. There's such and such,
you know, don't worry about the trunk. Open the trunk.
I mean that he did that for many, many years.
J D believed that hustlers were often underestimated. But that
(19:44):
is a mistake he would never make. You see, please
let them think the hustles are done. But there's some
response people you want to need in your life. I
always recognize that that's about to catch him. I never
thought they were done. When it was announced that Muhammad
Ali would fight Jerry Korey in Atlanta in October of
(20:05):
nineteen seventy, the big time hustlers in New York thought
it would be a perfect time to throw an after
hours party and Chicken Man's friend Fireball, asked him to
help organize and host the party. Five artists of guys
lived in Atlanta in the Northeast area that and so
called Terment Bottom area, and left Atlanta and went to
(20:27):
New York and the game hustler, drug dealer um lot
remains and the five all want to throw a thick
party and Atlanta after the fright. So he uh present
invitations and passed them out to all. It may have
been Fab five has written up or printed these engraved
(20:52):
invitation had passed them out after the Ali fight had ended. No,
they were past about trip to the fight. Prior to
the fight. Yeah, mat fact, we were able to uh
not on to find out who had been, but they
made we learned where they were. Frank. When I spoke
(21:14):
with Gordon Williams Jr. I asked him about some of
the names involved in the party and the robbery, including
his dad's friends Fireball. Fireball was, I mean, he was
a hustler, and he was a friend of my dad's,
and he was somebody and my dad looked up to.
He got his name through I think trying to cook
cocaine or something like that. He got his name Fireball.
(21:36):
Another name that came up in my investigation was Buddy Gloss.
Buddy Gloss now I knew him well. I knew Buddy
Gloss well. He was a good friend of my dad
and our family. So Buddy was he was always competing
with my dad. It was it was like a competition.
If my dad didn't numbers, but he did numbers. If
my dad did marijuana, Buddy did. My dad did cocaine Buddy,
(21:59):
So they were always in competition with each other. And
also Frank Moten, a top guy in an organization often
referred to as the Black Mafia and one of the
higher level gangsters of the party. All of these names
are going to be important, but especially Frank Moten, who
was known as the Black Godfather. He was reportedly the
(22:19):
leader of the Council of Twelve, a group of top
level decision makers for black organized crime. Back at j
D's house, we had barely gotten into the story of
the robbery itself. He had told me about some of
the key players, how the party came together, and I
knew where all this was heading Chicken Man's murder at
(22:42):
the hands of the Black Mafia. So I pulled out
the article again. This is from the New York Times Wednesday, October.
Informed sources associated with the police department suggested today that
Williams is dead as there was sold of a contract
released on him Gangland Terminology for an arrangement of his murder.
(23:06):
But what j D told me next would change everything. Okay,
so he see this article. I thinks we're going be
done within two days of the robberts. Jay was right,
that's wrong, Oh thin Man, Jesse May, It's a lot.
(23:28):
Now Chicken Man was alive. I couldn't believe what I
was hearing. The key to understanding what really happened the
night of the Ali Quarry fight was alive. Now I
had to track Chicken Man down and get his side
(23:48):
of the story. Fight Night is a joint production from
My Heart Radio, Opacker Media and Doghouse Pictures in association
with Psychopia Pictures. Produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive
producers are Will Packer, James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush,
(24:11):
Lars Jacobsen, and Noel Brown. Supervising producers Taylor Shacoyne. Story
editors are Noel Brown and Dan Bush. Written by Jeff
Keating and Jim Roberts, edited by Matt Owen. Mixing and
sound designed by Jeremiah Kolonnie Prescott. Music written and performed
by The Diamond Street Players. Additional music by Ben Lovett.
(24:32):
Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and Video Tape Collection,
Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries. Special thanks to
Dr Maurice Hobson and David Davis
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