November 9, 2020 • 27 mins
In this episode, we're visited by the ghost of one of the lead characters, learn the background of the afterparty and discover the mastermind of the subsequent heist.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the last episode, I played you the tape of
when I found out that Chicken Man was alive. In
my years of research, I'd come to understand the Chicken
Man had been blamed for the million dollar heist that
happened the night of the Oli Quarry fight, and that
he'd been killed as payback. But the press had it wrong.
Not only was Chicken Man alive, he was still in Atlanta.
(00:24):
I had so many questions. If there was really a
hit put on this man, how did he survive? If
he didn't set up the robbery, who did Why didn't
he ever follow up with the police or the press
to let them know that they'd gotten it wrong. I
had to find Chicken Man and get the answers. No more.
(00:52):
He was the repretation was on the line most definitely,
because everybody had faith in him to pull it off.
The gamblers and the jewelry and the minks and the
diamonds in the cash, it's all going to converge at
Chicken Man's house where he's putting the Twitter five up
to the face. You know there was I was standing there,
(01:14):
nervous because there's two guys behind me, nervous because of
this man in front of me, and nervous because I
was in a setting where I had no reason to be.
Every hustler, drug dealer, thief, number runner, bootlegger. You can
think of all these people came in for this party.
(01:34):
Party from my heart radio and doghouse pictures. This is
fight night. I'm Jeff Keating. After a few weeks, I
was able to track down Gordon William's number and I
called him on the phone and I said, Hey, my
name is Jeff Keating. I don't want to bring up
(01:54):
any bad memories. What are you the chicken man? And
the phone goes dead for literally like five to ten seconds,
and he says, so, oh, jee man, I'm just bad
to have story my last time when I will call
(02:15):
it a hustler. Who Yeah, we're the we're running the moon,
try and whisker the numbers in violation, I guess, saying
the first ground put me in prison was the lottery.
I will what's called the pickup bar. I'm just so
shocked and excited to meet this man. And he greets
(02:36):
me at the door and he's just kind of this
soft spoken, quiet man and just greets me, say hey, hey,
how you doing. Oh, Jeff you know, it's nice to
reach you. I tell him, you know a little bit
about myself, and we talk family at first, and I'm
just excited that I finally have this guy alive and
in front of me, and we get into the discussions
(02:59):
about the raw bringing that night, and he tells me
his whole story. B name, school guys and money in
the pockets. Okay, I'll be able to buy the little
thing in the communities that I wanted to buy. Okay,
that real quickly going. And when you get to that,
tell me how you met Short Papa. I met self proper,
self proper. We're living in the problems, self problems coming
(03:20):
up and connect from people in the probity. Okay, so
I got cancer medium because they're about me. The guy
he's talking about here is Short Papa, real name Robert
Van Brose. He was Chicken Man's earliest connection to running
the lottery in the Life and Crime. Chicken Man and
Short Papa could have easily met at Wesley Merritt Pool Hall,
(03:41):
and Short Papa was a hustler that tussled with Mr
Hudson early in his career. For Short Papa was the
first opportunity you got to buy and do some of
the nice things you wanted to do. Dude. I started
driving from on the weekend and then mom sing upset back.
So I was fashion and running a droll and so
(04:02):
rest she said out without money whatever she said, well,
I'm going to a subce. She sees the money that
I would go to working to bu gest delivering goes
the barbershop. Then of course he was both money like that, no,
not money love. So then you becomes hydra make more money.
(04:25):
So you're working for short POPA and you're doing that stuff.
What comes after short pop? Had you kind of move
up after self prop and I wanted to work for
brother Mirk, I thought chicken Man moved on from Short
Pop Up and started working for a guy named Buttermilk.
He began selling moonshine and picking up numbers. But I
(04:47):
didn't realize the kind of money we were talking about.
For a high school kid in the late nineteen forties,
what kind of money could you have made? You know,
a couple of about a couple of times we wait,
a couple of hundred dollars a couple of times a
week in high school back in those days, that's a
lot of money. We could have been making more than
(05:09):
your dad. Well at one point you were pulling in
a couple of all the weeks. Just to be clear,
a hundred dollars back in the late forties early fifties
would have been worth a round a thousand dollars today.
So Chicken Man was a high school kid bringing in
around a thousand to two thousand dollars a week, no
(05:32):
wonder he wanted to be a hustler. Chicken Man then
moved up to his next lucrative venture, drug dealing. So
the mare water came about. There was small I guess
you were two dollars bags and that kind of thing.
You know. My dream always uh from the wholesale side.
(05:53):
So I was there to meet people to get it
into the cross was number one product and Mason League
League or whatever. I guess you would say. It's like
all the ice crime. There was a part of it
became like I was a number one, you know, I
was a guy man going away. Yeah, I got and
(06:18):
he slowly built up a little mesday. You know what,
do you got a business and you got houses and
all that. I'm a man one time, what would you
do with yeah? Right right, Chicken Man was the embodiment
(06:38):
of the hustler culture from Miami and Atlanta all the
way to New York City. Chicken Man was the hustler's hustler,
so it really wasn't surprising at all that he was
asked to host this party. And again, the dichotomy of
this man in front of me at the time was
just hard for me to grasp because I've been reading
so much and hearing some uch about the hustler's world.
(07:01):
But now I was talking to this man, quiet, soft spoken,
but I will say I do remember occasionally as we
start talking about the old life, you get a little
glint in his eye, or a little smile out of
the corner of his mouth, or just a little twinkle
as he was remembering some of the different stuff that happens.
(07:22):
So there was still some connection to Chicken Man, and
that's what I was really trying to grab hold of.
One of the things that they have them we haven't
been children to decide to have. The party was in
New York, and here's something about the fight. I thought
it was an opportunity for me to host a pot
(07:44):
and make some money too. People come. This party was
the one the Chicken Man hosted for all the hustlers
and gangsters in town following the Muhammad Ali Jerry Corey fight.
And then somebody can live in New York told me
to was passing invitations out in New York, invited anybody.
(08:06):
Here's Gordon Williams Jr. He was access to the party.
The reputation was on the line most definitely, because everybody
had faith in him to pull it off. When the
party was getting real to happen, he stayed there more
than he stayed at home because he wanted everything to
be so perfect. A few days prior to the party,
he started getting really, really nervous about things and he
(08:26):
wanted everything to go so good. He wanted to be
just like Vegas. And I was like, wow, this is incredible.
I had no idea that he was gonna get it serious,
and it had gotten every hustler, drug dealer, the number runner,
blue legger you can think of across the country, checked
(08:47):
the motels and stuff like that. But as they were
coming in, I could hear the excitement in his voice.
They were coming from everywhere because this was a big event.
They were coming from Chicago, Detroit, louis Ville. Remember my
guy from Louisville. They called him Big Daddy. He was
a drug dealer too, And all these people came in
for this party, and my dad was really really excited.
(09:13):
Think about this. All this money is coming into Atlanta now,
the gamblers and the jewelry and the means and the
diamonds and the cash, it's all going to converge on Atlanta,
and it's all going to converge at Chicken Man's house.
When you've got that kind of money and those type
of people and that type of invitation on the streets,
(09:34):
somebody's gonna get winded this, and somebody's gonna jump on
that opportunity. And who would dare try to stick up
these gangsters anyway, But in the shadows, underneath everyone's noses,
somebody is planning a heist that's going to be talked
about for the next fifty years. There was engraved invitations
(10:10):
being printed in Harlem. These invitations stated that the party
was gonna last for days. And we know with these
invitations that are being sent out all across New York
and down in Atlanta, that one of these got in
the wrong hands. My dad was really excited about this.
This was the cream of the crop. This is the
most excited I've ever seen him. And he said that
(10:32):
this is gonna be. This right here is gonna you know,
we're gonna live good forever after this. He figured that
this right here will take care of us forever. But
they don't told me. And listen to people get in
a lot of we don't want to know where to party.
One of them better remember, Buddy Gloss was one of
(10:54):
Chicken Man's competitors that Gordon Williams Jr. Told us about
in episode one. He owned a sir verstation right here,
a little five points and we used to take so
much drugs and hot clothes. And that service station was
just like the hub for everybody to go to. If
you had something you want to get rid of, anything
(11:14):
you want to get rid of that was hot or stolen,
you go right there, buddy what I don't care what
it was? Come by hot and you don't never know,
So we don't need to know, and we don't want
We didn't don't want him to know. I don't know been.
They never explained to me why you need it, but
they told me, don't tell nobody in a line. And
after they explained Chicken Man is talking about Buddy Gloss,
(11:38):
one of his competitors, who the gangsters in New York
told him not to tell about the after hours party. Dude,
I hadn't told no about because that was my old
It's chicken man was getting this house set up. Another
guy right down the street is buying a shotgun. Whoever
(12:03):
is trying to pull this off. They got to be arrogant.
They got to be able to navigate the world of
these hustles. They are these hustlers. They got to be
able to fit in right under the noses of these
gangsters without them even knowing it. Maybe these gangsters just
never considered that anyone would have the balls to rob them.
But if you think about it, something was bound to happen.
(12:26):
There were just too many riches being flaunted in one place,
one community, at one time, in the hands of people celebrating,
people with their guards down. For they're not to be
opportunists who would try to take advantage of this window.
Not to mention a criminal mastermindy have a by championship
fan always attracts the superstars rich in the famous Here's J. D. Hudson,
(12:49):
the lead investigator on the case. That's just the way
they just always have historically. And with Muhammad Ali, with
the controversty of his refusing the goodness everything, all that
legal propecy he had had his Chile taken from him,
that just generated more interest. But they were throwing big parties,
you know, no money limit. They were playing coca and
(13:16):
shooting dice, no for and back in the those years
three and four and five thousand dollars a roll and
stuff like that, and they had that body guards entire
rages with them, and it was just a very festive
(13:38):
I went to the trains and all everything where he
trained at and everything he had, made a public appearance
or something, because that was kind of like a Hustle
World series. Here's Dr Hobson. Muhammad Ali's exhibitions and training
at Morehouse College was done so by design. Morehouse College
(13:58):
means so much to the Atlantic community. It is the
institution of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Dr Benjamin Elijah Mays,
Dr Samuel Archer. It was also kind of a safe haven.
It was one of those places to where he was
tucked away, he was protected, and it was in the
heart the skull and Bones of Black Atlanta. Here's J. D.
(14:19):
Telling me about the amount of money coming in to
Atlanta from Muhammad Ali's comeback fight. These hustlers who flew
in the Rose Ross Is driven to Atlanta. These people
had money, a lot of a lot of money that
must have been editing Rose Ross is a kind of
(14:40):
because and hustlers and camp stress, okay in front of
the So the Highatt Regency Hotel being this new, chic,
modern hotel, was particular to the black community, and it
was even made to be the headquarters for the Ali fight,
(15:04):
and it filled up with droves of black people wanting
to see the champ come back in this black city.
So if you were anybody coming to Atlanta, you better
believe you rode in your finest car, you had on
your finest clothes, and you'll stand in the finest hotel downtown.
The Regency Hyatt was very prominent in the news because
it opened on May one, nineteen sixty seven. This is
(15:26):
my mom. She and my dad met at the Regency
Hyatt and had recently gotten married. And it created quite
a frenzy in the world because it was the first
atrium hotel. Atlanta in nineteen seventy was a city evolving
into a contemporary cosmopolitan city. The Regency wasn't just a
(15:52):
hotel in downtown when it first opened in nineteen sixty seven.
It actually had a deep connection with Atlanta's black population
in its culture. And here's my dad again. Tom Keating
had been in the Regency the Sunday before or even
the day of the fight. And I had seen all
the regality of all the black elite and also the
(16:13):
black criminal elites. And so I had seen things I
had never seen before. And I would have been out
of my element. I would have been saying to myself,
Oh my goodness. And then the next thing I would see,
I would have said, oh my goodness, even bigger. And
the third thing I would have seen, I would have said,
oh my God. People coming to Atlanta, visitors from out
(16:37):
of town were fascinated with this hotel. A wreath of Franklin,
Jesse Jackson, John Wayne, all the presidents from Nixon to
Clinton actually stayed at that hotel. It had a lounge
called the Little Parasol Lounge. It was a cocktail lounge
that hung in the air by a wire, and it
(16:58):
had a three story avery with live exotic birds in it.
The because and parents and cocky the rock, which is
tropical bird, and it was constantly filling the air with
native sounds. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference tried to get their first annual meeting at a
(17:21):
hotel in Atlanta, and it was the only hotel that
would allow them to be hosted there. King called the
Hyatt Regency the Hotel of Hope. The latest iteration of
Atlanta is the Black Mecca. Is black expressive culture. It
is a young, sexy, active kind of city. And why
not wrapped it around Muhammad Ali, who's fighting at the
(17:42):
age of eight, and hey, let's come down here, let's stunt, hey,
let's show the world what we're made of and have
a good time. Not only was the Regency Hotel the
place where all the celebrating and parties took place, it
was also where Muhammad Ali and his entourage were staying.
My dad, who was a teacher across the street at St. Joe's,
(18:05):
got up the nerve to track down his room number
with the intention of asking Ali to speak to his students.
Here's my mom describing the scene my dad encountered as
he walked into the lobby. It had a twenty two
story Florida's ceiling atrium. The elevators were all glass, and
they raced up and down the atrium at a speed
(18:29):
of seven and ten ft a minute. It had sparkling
lights in each elevator. So I went up and knocked
on the door and two of the largest black guards
(18:49):
who were protecting him came to the door. Maybe one
had that gout out, remember too very tall, certainly to
me overwhelming side guards came and I told them who
I was, and I asked them if I could please
ask Mr Ali that I was hoping he would meet
(19:10):
children at St. Joe's. I was feeling anxious and determined
to get to where I could ask him to come
talk to students. And for some reason, they let me
buy that little alcove area. When I stepped into the room,
he was in bed with sheets up to his just
(19:31):
flow his chest. I was standing there, nervous because of
the two guys behind me, nervous because of this man
in front of me, Nervous because I was in a
setting where I had no reason to be. But I
plunged on. I asked if he would consider motivating the
(19:51):
students at St. Joe's and we had some quick discussion
about the fee he would receive, and I think he
mentioned it he would he was used to five hundred dollars,
and I volunteered that the best I could do would
be too hot dogs and a coke. He said that
he'd get back to me when he got back from
(20:12):
his next venture, which was to go to Hawaii, if
I remember. And so I'm kind of the way you
do with royalty back down of the room, I'm sure
stuttering or being nervous, and left the floor and went
downstairs with some confidence that at least I had gotten
through the experience and had asked him to do something
(20:34):
to help the kids. You have all of these different
forces coming together at the Regency. You have j D
and his policeman and his security detail for Ali. You've
got Ali and his entourage. You've got chicken men and
all the hustlers that were coming back from the fight
(20:56):
that we're about to be prepared to go to the party.
You've got celebrities that are in town party. You've got
journalists from all over the world that are there. Everybody
is coming in to one spot. The Regency was just
like the central location of Atlanta, and the whole time
this is happening in the background. You have a mastermind
at work preparing for the biggest heights in history, and
(21:29):
people just converged into Atlanta. All the hotels were sold out.
But one guy thought the whole tense Florida GA. My
hotel Blue about out paid for to be relocated. So
but what Apple was Now, we got it all set
and the day that the people started arriving into a Lanta.
(21:50):
So when I get to the Apple and we get out,
we runned up that people coming into Alantic with the
fire I mean, the Apple was busy. That's when the
Apple was sitting back up on the man. When I
get there to pick up JB, I meet Fireball. So
Fireball introduced me to this guy. He said, listen, when
you brought us by the hotel, Chicken Man is picking
(22:12):
up JB, his friend from New York, and he meets Fireball,
who we already knew from his earlier years in Atlanta
and Fireballs friends. He greas to take them to Atlanta's
built more hotel and then he'll run JB to the
Regency where all the action is going on. So we're
getting the car Fireball and the fellow that were with
fire Ball. We're talking about Atlanta's bosses having better hot
(22:36):
dogs than having New York and the little car. So
that was a conversation between them. Here's Dr Hobson. The
Varsity is an establishment in downtown Atlanta that borders Georgia
Institute of Technology. It's off of North Avenue. So as
a result of this, the Varsity also becomes a place
(22:57):
where some young people black and white, had an opportunity
to get jobs. So they wanted to go to the
build my hotel. Fireball, being from the line, knew where
the boss was, you know, the dvosity was there at
the Bill Moses and so he wanted me to care
by Advisor to get some hot dogs. Chicken Man just
(23:20):
picked up two of his friends from the airport, Fireball
and another guy from New York. These are dangerous guys
who've committed violent crimes and they're headed to the Varsity,
which is cash heavy. The Varsity was able to serve
massive amounts of people in very short period of time,
and so we all know that there was serious exchange
(23:42):
of cash. That the managers that be were cash heavy.
I mean they had a lot of cash on them
because it was, you know, a fast transaction. So when
we get to the visitor, the boy was with fireballs.
That man him placed the rob So he said that
de b my friend, he's really didn't matther time about
(24:03):
rob somebody. So I said, well that's five balls, friend,
I don't know. He upset. The guy who says this
would be a hell of a place to rob, we
believe is Richard Wheeler. Chicken men and his friends are piste.
This guy is talking about sticking up the Varsity, one
of the hotspots in their town. However, this is nothing
(24:26):
compared to what Richard Wheeler has in store for them.
So we took five ball of them on to the
build mo. So we go to the regions then, so
you know, he's still upset about it by what about
the robbery car? But when I get to the hotel,
we read the route we're going. They got a renovation,
but they want credit card, right, so he ain't got
(24:49):
no credit card. So I say, he put up like
twenty five thousand, so they give us. They get right,
he get all the room, his victim right on that
floor right, well, he put the twenty up and to
say it, the uh, you know, they were to talk
of business dead. So now is the night before the fight.
(25:11):
I wouldn't got my wife and went checked in the hotel.
I knew this thing was told me to go out
some serious dudes in his house. I have been one
of the guys who got robbed. The Chicken Man has
checked his wife into a hotel, we assumed to keep
her away from the action and the girls that he's entertaining.
(25:32):
One of his buddies just dropped twenty grand for a
whole floor at the Biltmore Hotel. And another guy, Richard Wheeler,
who wanted to rob the Varsity right when he got
into town, we believe, is casing Chicken Man's house for
a huge score. And one of Chicken Man's girls recognizes
there are some serious gangsters at their house party. Looking back,
(25:55):
he knows that one of these guys set up the
robbery at his house and changed his life forever. Fight
Night is a joint production from My Heart Radio, Will
Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures in association with Psychopia Pictures,
(26:17):
produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Will Packer,
James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush, Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown.
Supervising producer is Taylor Scoyne. 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
(26:39):
Kolonnie Prescott. Music written and performed by the Diamond Street Players.
Additional music by Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB
News Film and Videotape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University of
Georgia Libraries. Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and David
Davis
In the last episode, I played you the tape of
when I found out that Chicken Man was alive. In
my years of research, I'd come to understand the Chicken
Man had been blamed for the million dollar heist that
happened the night of the Oli Quarry fight, and that
he'd been killed as payback. But the press had it wrong.
Not only was Chicken Man alive, he was still in Atlanta.
(00:24):
I had so many questions. If there was really a
hit put on this man, how did he survive? If
he didn't set up the robbery, who did Why didn't
he ever follow up with the police or the press
to let them know that they'd gotten it wrong. I
had to find Chicken Man and get the answers. No more.
(00:52):
He was the repretation was on the line most definitely,
because everybody had faith in him to pull it off.
The gamblers and the jewelry and the minks and the
diamonds in the cash, it's all going to converge at
Chicken Man's house where he's putting the Twitter five up
to the face. You know there was I was standing there,
(01:14):
nervous because there's two guys behind me, nervous because of
this man in front of me, and nervous because I
was in a setting where I had no reason to be.
Every hustler, drug dealer, thief, number runner, bootlegger. You can
think of all these people came in for this party.
(01:34):
Party from my heart radio and doghouse pictures. This is
fight night. I'm Jeff Keating. After a few weeks, I
was able to track down Gordon William's number and I
called him on the phone and I said, Hey, my
name is Jeff Keating. I don't want to bring up
(01:54):
any bad memories. What are you the chicken man? And
the phone goes dead for literally like five to ten seconds,
and he says, so, oh, jee man, I'm just bad
to have story my last time when I will call
(02:15):
it a hustler. Who Yeah, we're the we're running the moon,
try and whisker the numbers in violation, I guess, saying
the first ground put me in prison was the lottery.
I will what's called the pickup bar. I'm just so
shocked and excited to meet this man. And he greets
(02:36):
me at the door and he's just kind of this
soft spoken, quiet man and just greets me, say hey, hey,
how you doing. Oh, Jeff you know, it's nice to
reach you. I tell him, you know a little bit
about myself, and we talk family at first, and I'm
just excited that I finally have this guy alive and
in front of me, and we get into the discussions
(02:59):
about the raw bringing that night, and he tells me
his whole story. B name, school guys and money in
the pockets. Okay, I'll be able to buy the little
thing in the communities that I wanted to buy. Okay,
that real quickly going. And when you get to that,
tell me how you met Short Papa. I met self proper,
self proper. We're living in the problems, self problems coming
(03:20):
up and connect from people in the probity. Okay, so
I got cancer medium because they're about me. The guy
he's talking about here is Short Papa, real name Robert
Van Brose. He was Chicken Man's earliest connection to running
the lottery in the Life and Crime. Chicken Man and
Short Papa could have easily met at Wesley Merritt Pool Hall,
(03:41):
and Short Papa was a hustler that tussled with Mr
Hudson early in his career. For Short Papa was the
first opportunity you got to buy and do some of
the nice things you wanted to do. Dude. I started
driving from on the weekend and then mom sing upset back.
So I was fashion and running a droll and so
(04:02):
rest she said out without money whatever she said, well,
I'm going to a subce. She sees the money that
I would go to working to bu gest delivering goes
the barbershop. Then of course he was both money like that, no,
not money love. So then you becomes hydra make more money.
(04:25):
So you're working for short POPA and you're doing that stuff.
What comes after short pop? Had you kind of move
up after self prop and I wanted to work for
brother Mirk, I thought chicken Man moved on from Short
Pop Up and started working for a guy named Buttermilk.
He began selling moonshine and picking up numbers. But I
(04:47):
didn't realize the kind of money we were talking about.
For a high school kid in the late nineteen forties,
what kind of money could you have made? You know,
a couple of about a couple of times we wait,
a couple of hundred dollars a couple of times a
week in high school back in those days, that's a
lot of money. We could have been making more than
(05:09):
your dad. Well at one point you were pulling in
a couple of all the weeks. Just to be clear,
a hundred dollars back in the late forties early fifties
would have been worth a round a thousand dollars today.
So Chicken Man was a high school kid bringing in
around a thousand to two thousand dollars a week, no
(05:32):
wonder he wanted to be a hustler. Chicken Man then
moved up to his next lucrative venture, drug dealing. So
the mare water came about. There was small I guess
you were two dollars bags and that kind of thing.
You know. My dream always uh from the wholesale side.
(05:53):
So I was there to meet people to get it
into the cross was number one product and Mason League
League or whatever. I guess you would say. It's like
all the ice crime. There was a part of it
became like I was a number one, you know, I
was a guy man going away. Yeah, I got and
(06:18):
he slowly built up a little mesday. You know what,
do you got a business and you got houses and
all that. I'm a man one time, what would you
do with yeah? Right right, Chicken Man was the embodiment
(06:38):
of the hustler culture from Miami and Atlanta all the
way to New York City. Chicken Man was the hustler's hustler,
so it really wasn't surprising at all that he was
asked to host this party. And again, the dichotomy of
this man in front of me at the time was
just hard for me to grasp because I've been reading
so much and hearing some uch about the hustler's world.
(07:01):
But now I was talking to this man, quiet, soft spoken,
but I will say I do remember occasionally as we
start talking about the old life, you get a little
glint in his eye, or a little smile out of
the corner of his mouth, or just a little twinkle
as he was remembering some of the different stuff that happens.
(07:22):
So there was still some connection to Chicken Man, and
that's what I was really trying to grab hold of.
One of the things that they have them we haven't
been children to decide to have. The party was in
New York, and here's something about the fight. I thought
it was an opportunity for me to host a pot
(07:44):
and make some money too. People come. This party was
the one the Chicken Man hosted for all the hustlers
and gangsters in town following the Muhammad Ali Jerry Corey fight.
And then somebody can live in New York told me
to was passing invitations out in New York, invited anybody.
(08:06):
Here's Gordon Williams Jr. He was access to the party.
The reputation was on the line most definitely, because everybody
had faith in him to pull it off. When the
party was getting real to happen, he stayed there more
than he stayed at home because he wanted everything to
be so perfect. A few days prior to the party,
he started getting really, really nervous about things and he
(08:26):
wanted everything to go so good. He wanted to be
just like Vegas. And I was like, wow, this is incredible.
I had no idea that he was gonna get it serious,
and it had gotten every hustler, drug dealer, the number runner,
blue legger you can think of across the country, checked
(08:47):
the motels and stuff like that. But as they were
coming in, I could hear the excitement in his voice.
They were coming from everywhere because this was a big event.
They were coming from Chicago, Detroit, louis Ville. Remember my
guy from Louisville. They called him Big Daddy. He was
a drug dealer too, And all these people came in
for this party, and my dad was really really excited.
(09:13):
Think about this. All this money is coming into Atlanta now,
the gamblers and the jewelry and the means and the
diamonds and the cash, it's all going to converge on Atlanta,
and it's all going to converge at Chicken Man's house.
When you've got that kind of money and those type
of people and that type of invitation on the streets,
(09:34):
somebody's gonna get winded this, and somebody's gonna jump on
that opportunity. And who would dare try to stick up
these gangsters anyway, But in the shadows, underneath everyone's noses,
somebody is planning a heist that's going to be talked
about for the next fifty years. There was engraved invitations
(10:10):
being printed in Harlem. These invitations stated that the party
was gonna last for days. And we know with these
invitations that are being sent out all across New York
and down in Atlanta, that one of these got in
the wrong hands. My dad was really excited about this.
This was the cream of the crop. This is the
most excited I've ever seen him. And he said that
(10:32):
this is gonna be. This right here is gonna you know,
we're gonna live good forever after this. He figured that
this right here will take care of us forever. But
they don't told me. And listen to people get in
a lot of we don't want to know where to party.
One of them better remember, Buddy Gloss was one of
(10:54):
Chicken Man's competitors that Gordon Williams Jr. Told us about
in episode one. He owned a sir verstation right here,
a little five points and we used to take so
much drugs and hot clothes. And that service station was
just like the hub for everybody to go to. If
you had something you want to get rid of, anything
(11:14):
you want to get rid of that was hot or stolen,
you go right there, buddy what I don't care what
it was? Come by hot and you don't never know,
So we don't need to know, and we don't want
We didn't don't want him to know. I don't know been.
They never explained to me why you need it, but
they told me, don't tell nobody in a line. And
after they explained Chicken Man is talking about Buddy Gloss,
(11:38):
one of his competitors, who the gangsters in New York
told him not to tell about the after hours party. Dude,
I hadn't told no about because that was my old
It's chicken man was getting this house set up. Another
guy right down the street is buying a shotgun. Whoever
(12:03):
is trying to pull this off. They got to be arrogant.
They got to be able to navigate the world of
these hustles. They are these hustlers. They got to be
able to fit in right under the noses of these
gangsters without them even knowing it. Maybe these gangsters just
never considered that anyone would have the balls to rob them.
But if you think about it, something was bound to happen.
(12:26):
There were just too many riches being flaunted in one place,
one community, at one time, in the hands of people celebrating,
people with their guards down. For they're not to be
opportunists who would try to take advantage of this window.
Not to mention a criminal mastermindy have a by championship
fan always attracts the superstars rich in the famous Here's J. D. Hudson,
(12:49):
the lead investigator on the case. That's just the way
they just always have historically. And with Muhammad Ali, with
the controversty of his refusing the goodness everything, all that
legal propecy he had had his Chile taken from him,
that just generated more interest. But they were throwing big parties,
you know, no money limit. They were playing coca and
(13:16):
shooting dice, no for and back in the those years
three and four and five thousand dollars a roll and
stuff like that, and they had that body guards entire
rages with them, and it was just a very festive
(13:38):
I went to the trains and all everything where he
trained at and everything he had, made a public appearance
or something, because that was kind of like a Hustle
World series. Here's Dr Hobson. Muhammad Ali's exhibitions and training
at Morehouse College was done so by design. Morehouse College
(13:58):
means so much to the Atlantic community. It is the
institution of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Dr Benjamin Elijah Mays,
Dr Samuel Archer. It was also kind of a safe haven.
It was one of those places to where he was
tucked away, he was protected, and it was in the
heart the skull and Bones of Black Atlanta. Here's J. D.
(14:19):
Telling me about the amount of money coming in to
Atlanta from Muhammad Ali's comeback fight. These hustlers who flew
in the Rose Ross Is driven to Atlanta. These people
had money, a lot of a lot of money that
must have been editing Rose Ross is a kind of
(14:40):
because and hustlers and camp stress, okay in front of
the So the Highatt Regency Hotel being this new, chic,
modern hotel, was particular to the black community, and it
was even made to be the headquarters for the Ali fight,
(15:04):
and it filled up with droves of black people wanting
to see the champ come back in this black city.
So if you were anybody coming to Atlanta, you better
believe you rode in your finest car, you had on
your finest clothes, and you'll stand in the finest hotel downtown.
The Regency Hyatt was very prominent in the news because
it opened on May one, nineteen sixty seven. This is
(15:26):
my mom. She and my dad met at the Regency
Hyatt and had recently gotten married. And it created quite
a frenzy in the world because it was the first
atrium hotel. Atlanta in nineteen seventy was a city evolving
into a contemporary cosmopolitan city. The Regency wasn't just a
(15:52):
hotel in downtown when it first opened in nineteen sixty seven.
It actually had a deep connection with Atlanta's black population
in its culture. And here's my dad again. Tom Keating
had been in the Regency the Sunday before or even
the day of the fight. And I had seen all
the regality of all the black elite and also the
(16:13):
black criminal elites. And so I had seen things I
had never seen before. And I would have been out
of my element. I would have been saying to myself,
Oh my goodness. And then the next thing I would see,
I would have said, oh my goodness, even bigger. And
the third thing I would have seen, I would have said,
oh my God. People coming to Atlanta, visitors from out
(16:37):
of town were fascinated with this hotel. A wreath of Franklin,
Jesse Jackson, John Wayne, all the presidents from Nixon to
Clinton actually stayed at that hotel. It had a lounge
called the Little Parasol Lounge. It was a cocktail lounge
that hung in the air by a wire, and it
(16:58):
had a three story avery with live exotic birds in it.
The because and parents and cocky the rock, which is
tropical bird, and it was constantly filling the air with
native sounds. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference tried to get their first annual meeting at a
(17:21):
hotel in Atlanta, and it was the only hotel that
would allow them to be hosted there. King called the
Hyatt Regency the Hotel of Hope. The latest iteration of
Atlanta is the Black Mecca. Is black expressive culture. It
is a young, sexy, active kind of city. And why
not wrapped it around Muhammad Ali, who's fighting at the
(17:42):
age of eight, and hey, let's come down here, let's stunt, hey,
let's show the world what we're made of and have
a good time. Not only was the Regency Hotel the
place where all the celebrating and parties took place, it
was also where Muhammad Ali and his entourage were staying.
My dad, who was a teacher across the street at St. Joe's,
(18:05):
got up the nerve to track down his room number
with the intention of asking Ali to speak to his students.
Here's my mom describing the scene my dad encountered as
he walked into the lobby. It had a twenty two
story Florida's ceiling atrium. The elevators were all glass, and
they raced up and down the atrium at a speed
(18:29):
of seven and ten ft a minute. It had sparkling
lights in each elevator. So I went up and knocked
on the door and two of the largest black guards
(18:49):
who were protecting him came to the door. Maybe one
had that gout out, remember too very tall, certainly to
me overwhelming side guards came and I told them who
I was, and I asked them if I could please
ask Mr Ali that I was hoping he would meet
(19:10):
children at St. Joe's. I was feeling anxious and determined
to get to where I could ask him to come
talk to students. And for some reason, they let me
buy that little alcove area. When I stepped into the room,
he was in bed with sheets up to his just
(19:31):
flow his chest. I was standing there, nervous because of
the two guys behind me, nervous because of this man
in front of me, Nervous because I was in a
setting where I had no reason to be. But I
plunged on. I asked if he would consider motivating the
(19:51):
students at St. Joe's and we had some quick discussion
about the fee he would receive, and I think he
mentioned it he would he was used to five hundred dollars,
and I volunteered that the best I could do would
be too hot dogs and a coke. He said that
he'd get back to me when he got back from
(20:12):
his next venture, which was to go to Hawaii, if
I remember. And so I'm kind of the way you
do with royalty back down of the room, I'm sure
stuttering or being nervous, and left the floor and went
downstairs with some confidence that at least I had gotten
through the experience and had asked him to do something
(20:34):
to help the kids. You have all of these different
forces coming together at the Regency. You have j D
and his policeman and his security detail for Ali. You've
got Ali and his entourage. You've got chicken men and
all the hustlers that were coming back from the fight
(20:56):
that we're about to be prepared to go to the party.
You've got celebrities that are in town party. You've got
journalists from all over the world that are there. Everybody
is coming in to one spot. The Regency was just
like the central location of Atlanta, and the whole time
this is happening in the background. You have a mastermind
at work preparing for the biggest heights in history, and
(21:29):
people just converged into Atlanta. All the hotels were sold out.
But one guy thought the whole tense Florida GA. My
hotel Blue about out paid for to be relocated. So
but what Apple was Now, we got it all set
and the day that the people started arriving into a Lanta.
(21:50):
So when I get to the Apple and we get out,
we runned up that people coming into Alantic with the
fire I mean, the Apple was busy. That's when the
Apple was sitting back up on the man. When I
get there to pick up JB, I meet Fireball. So
Fireball introduced me to this guy. He said, listen, when
you brought us by the hotel, Chicken Man is picking
(22:12):
up JB, his friend from New York, and he meets Fireball,
who we already knew from his earlier years in Atlanta
and Fireballs friends. He greas to take them to Atlanta's
built more hotel and then he'll run JB to the
Regency where all the action is going on. So we're
getting the car Fireball and the fellow that were with
fire Ball. We're talking about Atlanta's bosses having better hot
(22:36):
dogs than having New York and the little car. So
that was a conversation between them. Here's Dr Hobson. The
Varsity is an establishment in downtown Atlanta that borders Georgia
Institute of Technology. It's off of North Avenue. So as
a result of this, the Varsity also becomes a place
(22:57):
where some young people black and white, had an opportunity
to get jobs. So they wanted to go to the
build my hotel. Fireball, being from the line, knew where
the boss was, you know, the dvosity was there at
the Bill Moses and so he wanted me to care
by Advisor to get some hot dogs. Chicken Man just
(23:20):
picked up two of his friends from the airport, Fireball
and another guy from New York. These are dangerous guys
who've committed violent crimes and they're headed to the Varsity,
which is cash heavy. The Varsity was able to serve
massive amounts of people in very short period of time,
and so we all know that there was serious exchange
(23:42):
of cash. That the managers that be were cash heavy.
I mean they had a lot of cash on them
because it was, you know, a fast transaction. So when
we get to the visitor, the boy was with fireballs.
That man him placed the rob So he said that
de b my friend, he's really didn't matther time about
(24:03):
rob somebody. So I said, well that's five balls, friend,
I don't know. He upset. The guy who says this
would be a hell of a place to rob, we
believe is Richard Wheeler. Chicken men and his friends are piste.
This guy is talking about sticking up the Varsity, one
of the hotspots in their town. However, this is nothing
(24:26):
compared to what Richard Wheeler has in store for them.
So we took five ball of them on to the
build mo. So we go to the regions then, so
you know, he's still upset about it by what about
the robbery car? But when I get to the hotel,
we read the route we're going. They got a renovation,
but they want credit card, right, so he ain't got
(24:49):
no credit card. So I say, he put up like
twenty five thousand, so they give us. They get right,
he get all the room, his victim right on that
floor right, well, he put the twenty up and to
say it, the uh, you know, they were to talk
of business dead. So now is the night before the fight.
(25:11):
I wouldn't got my wife and went checked in the hotel.
I knew this thing was told me to go out
some serious dudes in his house. I have been one
of the guys who got robbed. The Chicken Man has
checked his wife into a hotel, we assumed to keep
her away from the action and the girls that he's entertaining.
(25:32):
One of his buddies just dropped twenty grand for a
whole floor at the Biltmore Hotel. And another guy, Richard Wheeler,
who wanted to rob the Varsity right when he got
into town, we believe, is casing Chicken Man's house for
a huge score. And one of Chicken Man's girls recognizes
there are some serious gangsters at their house party. Looking back,
(25:55):
he knows that one of these guys set up the
robbery at his house and changed his life forever. Fight
Night is a joint production from My Heart Radio, Will
Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures in association with Psychopia Pictures,
(26:17):
produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Will Packer,
James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush, Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown.
Supervising producer is Taylor Scoyne. 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
(26:39):
Kolonnie Prescott. Music written and performed by the Diamond Street Players.
Additional music by Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB
News Film and Videotape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University of
Georgia Libraries. Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and David
Davis
Host
Jeff Keating
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