March 4, 2024 • 44 mins
Eunice Carter’s descendents remember her as an austere woman, with a tendency to correct grammar and table manners.
Throughout her career, Eunice sought to make a mark on history. She yearned to create a legacy.
Did she succeed? And why does it matter to be remembered?
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Novel. Before we begin, a content warning the following episode
contains difficult themes and violence. In twenty fourteen, there was
a show running on HBO called Boardwalk Empire. Boardwalk Empire
(00:28):
takes place in nineteen twenties New Jersey during Prohibition. It
follows the life of corrupt politician Nukie Thompson, whose underworld
connections to some of the country's most notorious gangsters help
his bloody rise to the top. Steve Buscemi plays Nuckie Thompson,
who's based on Enoch Johnson, a real life New Jersey
(00:49):
politician and crime boss. The second to last episode is
called Friendless Child and is set in the early nineteen thirties.
Will Thompson, Nukie's nephew, is working as an assistant district attorney.
His boss, a black woman, tells him to pull all
the prostitution cases north of one hundred and tenth Street.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You need me too, mister Hodge does.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Will resent the instructions, and the unnamed black woman becomes conciliatory.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I'm sorry, okay, I don't make the assignments.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Would be any different if you did.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yes, it's not a big role, but it's based on Unis,
and from what I've learned about Unis so far, watching
that scene made me almost angry at this portrayal of her.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I know you're good at your job.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Mister Hodge does too. I doubt Unics would have tried
to sue the sensitive male ego in such a simpering way.
The character is named in the credits as Beatrice Carson.
That's similar enough to Unice Carter. Right when it aired
in twenty fourteen, many people thought it was totally and
(02:04):
utterly ridiculous, unrealistic, but not because of the simpering.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
They were like, oh, this is made up. You're just
inserting black people into places where they weren't. But the
thing is, there was a black woman prosecutor. And it's
not even just that not everyone remembers Unice, but that
people don't even believe she could have existed. The idea
that she could have existed seems like a fantasy to people.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
When I first learned about Unice Carter, I was so
excited to find out about her life. The more I read,
the more I alternated between being sad, frustrated, and angry.
Unice was a well known woman of her time, a
published writer, a socialite, daughter of a well known trailblazing
(02:53):
couple a prosecutor. She is the reason one of the
most notorious mobsters of all time was sent to jail.
Unis had so many recorded accomplishments and yet still manages
to be an obscure character in American history. You could
have a string of first after your name and still
(03:15):
be forgotten. How much does a black woman have to
do in order to stay bold faced throughout history.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think it's really fascinating that she was so prominent
at the time. I think I knew a little bit
about the things she had done, but I actually didn't
know that she had achieved notoriety for them at the time.
I think when it comes to black history in the
US specifically, often we remember people because their legacy can
(03:49):
be used to serve a particular narrative. And I sort
of wonder if, for Unis, she just never really fit
neatly into any particular narrative. Which is not to say
she's not remember at all, but she's not as much
of a household name as she could be, given the
things she accomplished and how well known she was in
her heyday. I think also there has been a real
(04:12):
erasure in US history of Black people who were movers
and shakers or who had access to power in their time.
I think that it speaks to who gets remembered and
who doesn't.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But it's clear that Eunice, perhaps more than anything, wanted
to be remembered. She had a certain type of ambition.
She wanted to move in certain circles and to be
recognized in the world in a certain way. She wanted
people to know that she was smart, that she was accomplished.
She wanted to have some proximity to power. She wanted
(04:49):
to be a judge. That was ultimately what she felt
she wanted to do. The things Eunice Carter did were
seen as so out of the ordinary for a black
woman at the time that when she appeared a character
in a television show many decades later, viewers didn't think
she could have even existed. Why.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I suspect she would think it's because she didn't get
to achieve everything she wanted to achieve.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
From the teams at iHeartRadio and novel. I'm Nicole Perkins
and this is the final episode of The Godmother, Episode eight,
(05:54):
Finding Unice. On November seventeenth, nineteen forty two, Eunice writes
Dewey a letter. Six years have passed since the Lucky
Luciano trial. Her handwriting is sure and strong, no splotches,
(06:17):
no words crossed out to fix any mistakes. At the time,
she's still working in the Prosecutor's office, but she's in
a new role now, one that Dewey promoted her to
just a couple of years earlier. The letter opens with
dear Boss, handwritten on what looks like quality paper, but
Dewey has left the Prosecutor's office by the time of writing.
(06:39):
In nineteen forty two, Eunice is congratulating him for recently
winning the election for governor.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
After the case things changed. Dewe became very well known.
He was a big crime buster national reputation.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And Dewey uses that popularity to launch a successful political career.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
He was Governor of New York from nineteen forty three
until nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
As governor, Dewey signed into law the ives Quinn Act,
which made New York the first state to ban job
discrimination based on race, religion, or creed. He increased unemployment
and disability benefits, and helped create the state university system,
plus many other accomplishments that helped make the Republican Party
more progressive than it had been before. But there's one
(07:28):
big twist of his career that must have chafed His
new life in politics puts him in a position where
he has to undo one of the biggest triumphs of
his career. During World War Two, New York's government finds
themselves in need of a very particular kind of deal broker.
At that time, New York's waterfront had less of a
(07:50):
touristy vibe than it does these days. It was run
by the mob.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
The waterfront was the Fulton Fish Mawaukeet, and fish was
a big racket.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
But World War Two is underway and the US Navy
sees that it's imperative new York's port is protected.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
New York was a huge port, even bigger than in
many ways than it is today.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
The US Navy needs someone to persuade the mob controlling
the port that they should work with authorities to keep
New York safe. Someone the mob will trust, and who
better than the former boss of bosses who's been languishing
in prison for the last decade, Lucky Luciano himself.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
He uses his connections within Italy and his connections through
organized crime groups across New York to make sure that
the ports remain free, safe and open during World War Two.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
If you see anything suspicious, you have to pass the
word along.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Because of his operation, Lucky gets himself a deal.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Jay ed go over later, so sarcastically remarked that they
did everything but give Luciano the Naval Cross.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
He's pardoned, and not just any pardon, but a pardon
from the Governor of New York himself, which by nineteen
forty six is of course Thomas E. Dewey that had
to hurt.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Luciano was released from prison in forty six and goes
off to Italy.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Lucky remains active in organized crime, silently financing ventures in
New York, Las Vegas, Cuba for the most part from
across the ocean, until he dies of a heart attack
at Naples International Airport in nineteen sixty two. His body
is buried in a cemetery in Queens. His path and
(09:52):
Dewey's are finally unspoiled, which leaves Dewey and Unice.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I have no doubt that Dewey respected Unice and Eunice
I think respected him she actually campaigned for him.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
But governor of New York is no small feat. He
doesn't just have pardoning power as governor, he can also
appoint every election Eunice is by Dewey's side. Dewey even
makes a bid for the White House in nineteen forty
four and forty eight, unsuccessfully, of course, although it was close.
(10:30):
At any moment in that eleven year reign, Dewey could
have helped Unice achieve her own career ambitions.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
He was very comfortable singing her praises as far as
the role that she'd played, but he never reached the
point where he was comfortable giving her a public face.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
It was kind of a point of controversy that he
could have appointed her as a judge. He never appointed her.
I don't think you can look up and go. He
just never had the opportunity. Why didn't he appoint here?
He knew she was very confident, She was very devoted
(11:15):
to him.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Dewey was progressive enough to appoint Unice to his team
and express admiration for all of her hard work. But
why was it so hard for him to help her
move to the bench. It's clear she was a star
on the rise. But her career seemed to plateau while
the men in the good old boys network surrounding her
kept climbing to success. I honestly can't say I'm surprised
(11:40):
that Dewey had no problem taking advantage of Unice's support
and expertise without letting it pay.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Off for her.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But why was unus so loyal to Dewey when he
didn't seem interested in helping her without benefit to himself.
It all seems to follow that old axum. Black people
have to work twice as hard to get half, and
that's not accounting for the unique challenges of being a
black woman. Unis may have felt that a judgeship could
(12:08):
have created a legacy for her, would have written her
more firmly than anything else could have into the pages
of American history, but it didn't happen. That's not to
say she didn't make an impact. Unice's work with Dewey
did leave a precedent of sorts that continues to influence
the modern justice system. Unice didn't pioneer these things, but
(12:32):
she was part of a pivot in the American legal system.
Like Dewey's joinder law used so effectively to convict Lucky
Luciano in association with his co defendants. Modern iterations of
that law are still in use to this day, sometimes
in ways that UNICE would have supported.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
It's actually what groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center
used to bankrupt the Ku Kuk Klan in certain cities.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
But in the criminal world, laws like the Joinder law
have often been used in ways that are heavily racialized,
like targeting gang violence in la and New York.
Speaker 7 (13:10):
Those investigations are often heavily raced based. They're looking for
young black men who have certain associations, who wear certain
kinds of clothing, and really sweep in large numbers of
people in the community in the effort to try to
turn back gun violence in a particular area.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
We've even seen it used against protest movements.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
We've seen that in the state of Georgia, where the
governor has gone after activists attempting to stop the creation
of a large training facility near Atlanta called cop City.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
None of these were inventions of UNISES, and she's not
responsible for the way they've evolved into their current forms.
But I do wonder whether history would have remembered units
better if she'd worked against the system as it was then,
instead of from within it, whether or not she yearned
to dismantle it change it. With her very presence in
(14:07):
those rooms of power, history has seemed to remember the
radicals and the protesters a little more clearly. I think
back to her essay breaking Through that road map of
sorts she wrote for her own career trajectory, but also
of the people of Harlem trapped in the modern ghetto.
(14:32):
Could she have imagined that nearly a century after she
wrote those words, thirty eight percent of those imprisoned in
the US are black, despite being only thirteen percent of
the country's population, removed from their communities in service to
a sprawling brand of law enforcement that her own work
(14:52):
helped lay down in history.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
A problem with situations like Unice Carter is if you
are the one person, if you are one of few people,
and you don't have meaningful access to power in that office,
and you don't have a meaningful voice in that office,
(15:19):
it too easily devolves into tokenism. Right, It's too easily
transformed into Now the institution is using you to validate
itself because it's gone out and created a more diverse workforce,
and you yourself find that two years, three years in,
you really haven't been able to shift the institution.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Unice, perhaps sinsing that the judgeship was never going to happen,
quits the world of law for good in the early
nineteen fifties.
Speaker 7 (15:50):
If you are somebody who is trying to rock the boat,
you are always subject to the status quo rocking it
right back. And that applies for anyone rocking the boat,
but I think it applies with special force to black
people who are trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Unice's guiding belief has always been help me further my
career and I'll be loyal to you. But the flip
side of that coin is the toll it ends up
taking on Unice's personal life, because when those dreams don't
come to fruition, she looks for someone to blame and
finds him a little closer to home.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
She was never made a judge, but I think she
always felt that it was because of Alvius' politics.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
As in Eunice's younger brother Addie and William's only son
Alfaeus hunting. When there's anything going on in my life,
(17:03):
good or bad, I turned to the group chats, A
bad date, a single thumbs down, emoji a good date,
thumbs up A very very good date. Well that gets
full sentences.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
My impression of Unice is not that she was someone
who had a lot of close girlfriends or friends who
she really talked to about everything that was going on
with her internally, people who she hung out with and
gossiped with and confided in.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
The picture I see of Unice in her later years
is a lonely one. I find myself yearning still to
know what kind of friend Unice was, Who does she
share secrets with, share her dreams with? But there doesn't
(17:54):
seem to be any of that in Unice's life. For
a while, Unis has one friend, Mary McLeod Bethune.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Bethoon was that person, even though they had kind of
a mentor mentee relationship, but you know, they were also close.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Mary McLeod Bethune is a civil rights activist and educator.
Unice met through her mother, Addie Hunton, but they eventually
have a major falling out over something that seems kind
of trivial looking back. Unice is hoping to be chosen
to represent the National Council of Negro Women at a
major event, but she isn't and for some reason or
(18:32):
another she blames Mary for the fact that she was overlooked.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
That was just a sad thing. You know, when you
watch two friends break up, and it's just depressing. I
think sometimes her personal relationships they weren't always great.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
There's another anecdote about Unice that also speaks to me
about her loneliness. It's a memory of Lyle Carter Junior's,
Unice's only child. He lived most of his childhood away
from his parents, often on long stays with extended family
and Barbados. But on one occasion, when Lyle Junior is
around eleven or twelve, he finds himself alone with his
(19:13):
mother and Eunice asks Lyle Junior for advice. Does he
think she should get a divorce from her husband? His father.
There have been rumors of affairs throughout Unice's marriage to
Lyle Carter sor her dentist husband, but there's something tragic
about the idea of Unice asking her pre adolescent son
(19:34):
for advice. She could have used a girlfriend at that moment.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Her marriage, from what we can tell, wasn't the happiest.
I can't say for sure why that was, and I
certainly am not influenced to blame it on her ambition,
just doing my personal principles. But yeah, but I reading
(20:05):
the correspondence with Bathoon, I can see how her attitude
would make personal relationships difficult for her.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sometimes she could have used even a sibling to turn
to at that moment, But Eunice's path and the path
her younger brother Alfaeus took they went in totally different directions.
Alfaus Hunting was a scholar and an activist who was
a tall, slim man with a thick mustache and eyebrows.
(20:39):
Possibly Alfaus had been her companion during the riots in
Atlanta and their mother's adventures in Germany. Like Eunice in adulthood,
Alfaus is committed to the project of racial uplift.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Not only African American people, but all people of color
and fighting for working class rights, fighting for unions, fighting
for national liberation against colonialism.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Also, like his sister, he works with some major leading
figures like Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Boyce.
But unlike Unics, who remains in the Republican Party her
entire life, Alphaeus takes a sharp political left turn.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Alpheus was a communist, like a real communist.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
The same year that the Trial of the Century unfolds,
Alpheus makes a career choice of a very different kind.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
In nineteen thirty six, al Faeus officially joined the Communist Party.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
He was active with a lot of left wing organizations.
He was a supporter of Mao and Stalin. He was,
you know, the real deal.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I think that was the beginning of the troubles for Alphaeus.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
It's fascinating to think of Alphaeus finding his way to communism.
My siblings and I are all very different from each other.
But my older sister, the firstborn, is the golden child
of the Fa family. She always does the right thing
and is the kind of person who waves as strangers
like they're best friends. She also keeps the peace. My
(22:09):
mother says, I'm her rebel, but I tend to set
up tougher boundaries than my sister and my brother. Plus
I'm the middle child, It's my birthright to cause a
little havoc. Alphaeus is the baby brother, the only boy.
I wonder if part of the reason these two siblings
are so different is so that they can stand out
(22:30):
from each other. Like Uni studies at Smith, a predominantly
white private women's college, with her fees paid for by
a wealthy friend of their mother. Alphaeus, on the other hand,
works as a railway porter at a train station through
his college years at Howard University, a historically black school.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I'm not saying he became a communist because he was
frustrated that his sister's college was paid for and his wasn't,
But he would have been hanging out with pullman porters
and getting exposed to the labor movement. He did have
very different experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
In nineteen forty one, as Unice is playing the perfect
respectable Republican, the FBI is creating a file on her
younger brother. One day in May, Alfaz is reading a
newspaper when he comes across his own name. It's in
an article which states that the House of Unamerican Activities Committee,
(23:24):
created to examine any behavior considered to be a threat
to the public like communist thought, has branded him a communist.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
He actually read in the newspaper the charges against him
before he was informed by the committee that he was
even being charged.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
He writes to the committee demanding the right to testify,
but it's not until the following year that he receives
a letter from the FBI exonerating him of all charges.
But as the years progressed, his file grows thicker notes
reports associations.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Presumably al Faeus saw in socialism and communism the path
for African American equality and black liberation. I think Unice
saw a different path.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
As their paths diverge, Eunice and al Faus clashed publicly
with each other.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Not directly, but they were ideologically opposed on a lot
of things. For example, when Thomas Dewey was running for President,
ALTHEUS was calling him a reactionary in the press, which
I'm sure she didn't like very much.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
By the early nineteen fifties, Unice has given up Act
of Law and is working with a few prominent black
women's associations on their domestic and international efforts.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
She was at the founding of the United Nations, I
think on behalf of the National Council of Negro Women.
After World War Two there was a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
One of those things is the UN Convention on Genocide Postwar.
The Convention aims to define genocide so it can be
considered an international crime.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And in the early fifties there was a movement to
get the United States to ratify the Convention.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Unice wants to get the US on board, and for
a while it's a family affair because so doaes alphaeis.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Eunice testified before the Senate in favor of for ratification.
She was actually the only black person to testify for it.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
But there are significant levels of pushback against the idea
of ratification in America. One in particular, becomes a sticking point.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
One of the arguments against the US's ratification of the
Convention was that the US itself was in violation of
the Convention. The number one concern was because of the
prevalence of lynching and overall because of the treatment of
black Americans.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Imagine Units going to the podium wearing one of her
white lace collars is the nineteen fifties, sir hat and
gloves probably would have been on points. She's standing in
front of a panel of senators, a room full of
people behind her. She speaks some of the few words
we have of hers that have lasted through the years
(26:21):
to be brushed off and examined again in the harsh
light of present day.
Speaker 8 (26:27):
The situation of the Negro people in this country is
in no way involved the lynching of an individual or
of several individuals has no relation to the extinction of
masses of people because of race, religion, or political belief.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Over seventy percent of people lynched in America were black.
That's at least three thousand, four hundred and forty six
Black Americans. Up until nineteen sixty eight that we know of,
lynching was off in a form of vigilante justice, with
white people hanging and mutilating black people accused of any
(27:06):
number of crimes from loitering to making eye contact to
sexual assault without any formal charges, a way of eradicating
black life based on race. It was absolutely a form
of genocide. So we don't know whether UNUS really believed
this or not, but I think she felt we want
(27:27):
to get it ratified. We need to convince people that
it's not going to cause problems for the US, and
so this is what I'm going to say. It's hard
to remember our icons could have been as flawed as
the rest of us, especially when you have to follow
certain cultural moras. Don't speak ill of the dead, don't
disrespect your elders, don't share family business with outsiders. We
(27:49):
see it when it comes to looking beyond Martin Luther
King Junior's legacy to see him as a human being
who may have made mistakes in his marriage. He became
a martyr of civil rights movement, and to speak beyond
his accomplishments is to be disrespectful. It's disappointing that Unus
would argue that lynching should not be a part of
(28:10):
this basic human rights consideration. But if that is how
Unus feels, her brother Alphaeus does not agree.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Alpheus was not willing to make that concession. An organization
that he worked with, called the Civil Rights Congress, drafted
a document called we Charge Genocide, which was submitted to
the UN, essentially saying yes, the situation in the US
is exactly the type of thing that the Genocide Convention
speaks to, and Alpheus was involved in drafting it and
(28:40):
was also a signatory to the document.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I wonder if Unus was angry with her brother for
being at such cross purposes. It probably caused a lot
of tongue wagging for this brother and sister to be
so at odds. Did Unis take Alphaeus's stance as a
personal attack against her.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I don't think he was doing it personally. It wasn't
about her, but I think Unis probably, both in that
situation and in the Thomas Dewey situation, felt very undermined
by him. She probably felt frustrated that he was taking
public positions. She probably took his politics a little personally.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
I think that she took the wrong stance. I think
because of her background in law enforcement, she knew it
was the wrong stance. I think that it was either
incredibly naive or disingenuous for her to blame her brother
for the limitations that were placed on her in a
Jim Crow racist, sexist society.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's a rift they never come to rectify. In the
year that followed Unis testifying, in nineteen fifty one, Alphaeus
stood before the House of Unamerican Activities Committee time in person.
He refuses to give up the names of those who'd
contributed to a civil rights fund which had come under
the scrutiny of the committee.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And because al Fais took the principled stand that he
would not divulge their names, he was sentenced to six
months in prison.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
He had a vision of what he thought was best
for the world, and he was willing to sacrifice a
lot personally for it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
After that prison stint, was over, Alfaus finds it difficult
to get a foot back on the ladder of politics
in America.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
A lot of the organizations that he had worked with
sort of fell apart. He basically couldn't find work in
the US, and he ended up spending most of the
rest of his life in Africa.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
For the rest of her life, Unice will blame her
failure to see of a judge ship on Alpheus's communist misadventures.
Maybe it was easier to point the finger at someone
she felt had betrayed her than to confront the fact
that Dewey, someone she'd been loyal to, had let her down.
Maybe it was easier to blame her brother, a black man,
(31:19):
than it was to point the finger at Dewey, a
white man with power. Whatever the reason, as Unice aged,
she'd broken off her relationships with her brother, was living
in a rocky marriage, had strained her relationship with her son,
and had lost her only friend. When people looked at
(31:41):
Unice as she moved into later life, what did they see.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
When I was growing up? The image I had was
more just a stern faced woman with like a fur coat.
I think I had this idea that she were for
a goat?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Is that from some pictures that you saw now?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I think it came from just the way my dad
talked about her.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Leah Carter is the great granddaughter of Eunice Hunt and Carter.
Leah's voice has been featured throughout the series. Her contributions
have been some of the only direct contact I found
with Unice when searching for a sense of who she was,
above and beyond her historical record. As well as being
Unus's great granddaughter, Leah has spent time carrying out meticulous
(32:41):
research for her father's book. Her father is Stephen L. Carter,
a lawyer, professor, and author and Eunice Carter's grandson.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
She was apparently always very glamorously dressed and put together.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Before Leah spent her days going through archives, letters, journals.
There were the bright yet hazy details passed down to
her from the childhood memories of her own father.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I knew a few things that my dad had told
stories about her, just as his grandmother. I can't remember
if he said that she wore her coats or I
just ad lipped that in my mind, but that was
sort of my childhood image for her.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Leah's father remembers unus as a stern grandmother and an
imposing presence. The grandchildren were all a little scared of her.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
She would correct his grammar, and he always said she
used the type of person who would correct to the
way that they were using their silverware at dinner.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
That makes sense to me. Eunice in her life always
had to be pristine. She was detail oriented, and she
was often in the kinds of spaces that were full
of white people who probably looked for the slightest flaw
on how she carried herself or communicated. She probably tried
to train her grandchildren for the harsh world she'd experienced.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
She traveled a lot in her life. Her life went
on a lot of cruises, and I don't know if
that sort of added to their image of her as
like kind of an imposing, faraway figure.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
What stands out to me is how Eunice's accomplishments always
seemed to keep her on the edges of time, from
the Luciano trial to her own family law.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
When I was younger, she was just this figurehead of
here's the type of thing you're supposed to be achieving.
Not that anyone ever told me that you too should
be accomplished as Unis, but just I think that's probably
what I would have felt like her father and her
father's father and Eunice herself. Leo became a lawyer, but
(34:41):
it was only when researching her great grandmother that Leah
discovered the earlier parts of Unice's professional life, including one
aspect that overlapped with a writer who reminds me of
Unis in many ways. I thought about this way back
in episode two. I didn't know that she had been
a writer. One of my favorite facts was she was
inducted into the Harlem Writers Guild along with Zorn Neil Hurston,
(35:07):
which was so amazing to me. I was like, oh,
my gosh, that's my great grandma. Hey, I was Sara
in Hurston really overwhelmed by that.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Unice achieved a lot of recognition in her own time,
especially in the black press. It's no exaggeration to say
she was famous all over America, but her current day
legacy seems to be fading in real time. That's a
big part of why I decided to do this podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I could go on about this for a while, about
the way that we talk about or don't talk about
black history in this country, the way that we treat
black history as separate from history. I certainly felt, especially
when I was very young, what we were taught about
black people was that nobody had really done anything until
(35:57):
quite recently. That there was slavery, and then everyone was
a sharecropper for a while, and then the civil rights
movement happened, and now everything's great. And I'm not saying
we shouldn't talk about slavery or sharecropping. Obviously those things
are really important, But there are so many things that
black people have done that have been forgotten or kind
(36:18):
of just buried, and that is very frustrating.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Eunice Hunting Carter is responsible for the most sensational trial
in the history of American organized crime. Why does her
legacy only seem to survive in the realm of hazy
childhood memories of a stern, older woman in a fur
coat correcting grammar. She was a legend in the making
long before the Lucky Luciano trial.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Obviously she intimidated her grandkids, but I think she intimidated
a lot of people in real life. She was just
kind of a fierce person.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
It's hard to know what kept Unis from her judgeship
or why someone with such an outstanding work ethic and
influential connections did not go further in her career. Is
it just enough to point the finger at racism and misogyny?
Was she too dedicated to her ambitions? Her years as
a Harlem socialite proved she knew how to let her
(37:22):
hair down and shake a tail feather. What exactly was
the secret password that would have opened up her career
and made her a household name. I wish I had
that time machine so I could go back and ask
Thomas E doing look here, fella, what gives? He'd probably
have me sent away and lobotomized. But I still try
(37:45):
to fight for my girl. Unis would she had fought
for me? I can relate in many ways to Unis,
the pressure of navigating predominantly white spaces while they constantly
in your right to be there, having a strong idea
of how you see your career going, and trying to
(38:06):
be a team player while others take credit for your work.
I know what it's like to be too direct with
firm boundaries, or to be called unlikable as shorthand for
she won't let me bully her. I even know what
it means to stay in an unhappy relationship for security
and status. But I've never been good at brown nosing
(38:29):
or staying loyal to someone who doesn't seem to support
my growth. I also wouldn't sacrifice my community for the
sake of a greater good that doesn't take my people
into consideration. If Unison I met today, she'd probably be
aghast at the lack of structure in my working life,
but maybe she'd secretly admire the freedom of my dating life.
(38:53):
I'd let her read my memoir and poetry. I think
she'd be proud to see me making a living out
of my createsivity and disappointed that the only dining silverware
etiquette I know is outside in and looking for Unice's story.
(39:14):
I am reminded of all the other black women in
America who have had their stories buried or forgotten.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
If you do something valuable with your life, it's still
valuable even if people don't remember it. The influence that
you have while you're alive matters, even if after you're
gone everyone forgets about you. Even though that's frustrating, but
I think it doesn't mean that it was all for nothing.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Legacy is important to me. I understand Unice's desire to
leave her mark on history. Time has worn it down,
but if you know where to look, you can still
make it out. I have a fear of being forgotten,
that my life, my art, my work will disappear, and
I don't even have a fourth of Unice's accomplishments. But
(40:13):
as I've learned about Unice Hunting Carter, I know that
someone somewhere down the line will find a faint marking
of me. And even if it's only one person who
tries to track down the history of me, that will
be enough. As a child free woman, I don't have
(40:35):
children who will bless me with grandkids and great grandkids
who might one day research and write a book about me.
Fortunately Unice Hunting Carter does, and now we can see
that she was a complicated, fascinating, perhaps unlikable, definitely beloved
and smart woman whose tenacity took down New York's most
(40:58):
notorious gangster amid the racism and sexism of nineteen thirties America,
and who fought just as fiercely for herself. And one
of those great grandchildren has some advice for you.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Find these stories, dig them up if they've been buried.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
You've been listening to the Godmother.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
My name's Leah Carter. I am Eunis Carter's great granddaughter.
My dad, Stephen Carter, wrote the book Invisible, the Forgotten
story of the black woman lawyer who took down America's
most famous mobster, and I did a lot of the
research for that book.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
I'm Marilyn Greenwald. I'm a professor of of journalism at
Ohio University, and I'm the author of five biographies, including
one of Eunice Hunting Carter.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
My name is Robert Whalan and I'm an emerathus Professor
of history at Queen's University of Charlotte here in Charlotte,
North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Hi, my name is Ellen Paulson.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
I research and I write books about women who were
involved with notorious gangsters and desperadoes.
Speaker 6 (42:28):
I am Claire White and I am the director of
education at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.
Speaker 7 (42:35):
My name is Brandon Busky and I am the director
of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
My name is Tony Passanowski and I am a independent
historian and author. Aside from Dorothy Hunton's biography of her
husband Alveus, my book is the only standalone biography of
Alfaus Hunting.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The Godmother is hosted
and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hamid.
Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior and Zianna Yusuf.
(43:25):
Our editor is Ajua Jima Broompong. Additional story editing from
Max O'Brien and Mitha Lee Raw and our researcher is
Zaiana Yusuf. Additional research from Mohammed Ahmed. David Waters is
our executive producer. Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw,
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempsen. Our score
(43:46):
was written, performed and recorded by Jeff Parker. Music supervision
by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Production management and endless
patients from Sharie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact
checking by Fendell Fulton and Donia Suleiman. Story development by
Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne, Esseiana Yusuf. Willard Foxton is our
(44:11):
creative director of Development. Special thanks to Leah Carter, Stephen Carter,
Angela J. Davis, Andrew Fernley, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebedy, Katherine Godfrey,
Nadia Maidie, Amalia Sortland, Sean Glenn, Neil Krishnan, Julia Bromberg,
(44:32):
Katrina Norvelle, Carly Frankel, and all the team at w
Emmy
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Novel
Novel. Before we begin, a content warning the following episode
contains difficult themes and violence. In twenty fourteen, there was
a show running on HBO called Boardwalk Empire. Boardwalk Empire
(00:28):
takes place in nineteen twenties New Jersey during Prohibition. It
follows the life of corrupt politician Nukie Thompson, whose underworld
connections to some of the country's most notorious gangsters help
his bloody rise to the top. Steve Buscemi plays Nuckie Thompson,
who's based on Enoch Johnson, a real life New Jersey
(00:49):
politician and crime boss. The second to last episode is
called Friendless Child and is set in the early nineteen thirties.
Will Thompson, Nukie's nephew, is working as an assistant district attorney.
His boss, a black woman, tells him to pull all
the prostitution cases north of one hundred and tenth Street.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You need me too, mister Hodge does.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Will resent the instructions, and the unnamed black woman becomes conciliatory.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I'm sorry, okay, I don't make the assignments.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Would be any different if you did.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yes, it's not a big role, but it's based on Unis,
and from what I've learned about Unis so far, watching
that scene made me almost angry at this portrayal of her.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I know you're good at your job.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Mister Hodge does too. I doubt Unics would have tried
to sue the sensitive male ego in such a simpering way.
The character is named in the credits as Beatrice Carson.
That's similar enough to Unice Carter. Right when it aired
in twenty fourteen, many people thought it was totally and
(02:04):
utterly ridiculous, unrealistic, but not because of the simpering.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
They were like, oh, this is made up. You're just
inserting black people into places where they weren't. But the
thing is, there was a black woman prosecutor. And it's
not even just that not everyone remembers Unice, but that
people don't even believe she could have existed. The idea
that she could have existed seems like a fantasy to people.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
When I first learned about Unice Carter, I was so
excited to find out about her life. The more I read,
the more I alternated between being sad, frustrated, and angry.
Unice was a well known woman of her time, a
published writer, a socialite, daughter of a well known trailblazing
(02:53):
couple a prosecutor. She is the reason one of the
most notorious mobsters of all time was sent to jail.
Unis had so many recorded accomplishments and yet still manages
to be an obscure character in American history. You could
have a string of first after your name and still
(03:15):
be forgotten. How much does a black woman have to
do in order to stay bold faced throughout history.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think it's really fascinating that she was so prominent
at the time. I think I knew a little bit
about the things she had done, but I actually didn't
know that she had achieved notoriety for them at the time.
I think when it comes to black history in the
US specifically, often we remember people because their legacy can
(03:49):
be used to serve a particular narrative. And I sort
of wonder if, for Unis, she just never really fit
neatly into any particular narrative. Which is not to say
she's not remember at all, but she's not as much
of a household name as she could be, given the
things she accomplished and how well known she was in
her heyday. I think also there has been a real
(04:12):
erasure in US history of Black people who were movers
and shakers or who had access to power in their time.
I think that it speaks to who gets remembered and
who doesn't.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
But it's clear that Eunice, perhaps more than anything, wanted
to be remembered. She had a certain type of ambition.
She wanted to move in certain circles and to be
recognized in the world in a certain way. She wanted
people to know that she was smart, that she was accomplished.
She wanted to have some proximity to power. She wanted
(04:49):
to be a judge. That was ultimately what she felt
she wanted to do. The things Eunice Carter did were
seen as so out of the ordinary for a black
woman at the time that when she appeared a character
in a television show many decades later, viewers didn't think
she could have even existed. Why.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I suspect she would think it's because she didn't get
to achieve everything she wanted to achieve.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
From the teams at iHeartRadio and novel. I'm Nicole Perkins
and this is the final episode of The Godmother, Episode eight,
(05:54):
Finding Unice. On November seventeenth, nineteen forty two, Eunice writes
Dewey a letter. Six years have passed since the Lucky
Luciano trial. Her handwriting is sure and strong, no splotches,
(06:17):
no words crossed out to fix any mistakes. At the time,
she's still working in the Prosecutor's office, but she's in
a new role now, one that Dewey promoted her to
just a couple of years earlier. The letter opens with
dear Boss, handwritten on what looks like quality paper, but
Dewey has left the Prosecutor's office by the time of writing.
(06:39):
In nineteen forty two, Eunice is congratulating him for recently
winning the election for governor.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
After the case things changed. Dewe became very well known.
He was a big crime buster national reputation.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And Dewey uses that popularity to launch a successful political career.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
He was Governor of New York from nineteen forty three
until nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
As governor, Dewey signed into law the ives Quinn Act,
which made New York the first state to ban job
discrimination based on race, religion, or creed. He increased unemployment
and disability benefits, and helped create the state university system,
plus many other accomplishments that helped make the Republican Party
more progressive than it had been before. But there's one
(07:28):
big twist of his career that must have chafed His
new life in politics puts him in a position where
he has to undo one of the biggest triumphs of
his career. During World War Two, New York's government finds
themselves in need of a very particular kind of deal broker.
At that time, New York's waterfront had less of a
(07:50):
touristy vibe than it does these days. It was run
by the mob.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
The waterfront was the Fulton Fish Mawaukeet, and fish was
a big racket.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
But World War Two is underway and the US Navy
sees that it's imperative new York's port is protected.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
New York was a huge port, even bigger than in
many ways than it is today.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
The US Navy needs someone to persuade the mob controlling
the port that they should work with authorities to keep
New York safe. Someone the mob will trust, and who
better than the former boss of bosses who's been languishing
in prison for the last decade, Lucky Luciano himself.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
He uses his connections within Italy and his connections through
organized crime groups across New York to make sure that
the ports remain free, safe and open during World War Two.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
If you see anything suspicious, you have to pass the
word along.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Because of his operation, Lucky gets himself a deal.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Jay ed go over later, so sarcastically remarked that they
did everything but give Luciano the Naval Cross.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
He's pardoned, and not just any pardon, but a pardon
from the Governor of New York himself, which by nineteen
forty six is of course Thomas E. Dewey that had
to hurt.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Luciano was released from prison in forty six and goes
off to Italy.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Lucky remains active in organized crime, silently financing ventures in
New York, Las Vegas, Cuba for the most part from
across the ocean, until he dies of a heart attack
at Naples International Airport in nineteen sixty two. His body
is buried in a cemetery in Queens. His path and
(09:52):
Dewey's are finally unspoiled, which leaves Dewey and Unice.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I have no doubt that Dewey respected Unice and Eunice
I think respected him she actually campaigned for him.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
But governor of New York is no small feat. He
doesn't just have pardoning power as governor, he can also
appoint every election Eunice is by Dewey's side. Dewey even
makes a bid for the White House in nineteen forty
four and forty eight, unsuccessfully, of course, although it was close.
(10:30):
At any moment in that eleven year reign, Dewey could
have helped Unice achieve her own career ambitions.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
He was very comfortable singing her praises as far as
the role that she'd played, but he never reached the
point where he was comfortable giving her a public face.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
It was kind of a point of controversy that he
could have appointed her as a judge. He never appointed her.
I don't think you can look up and go. He
just never had the opportunity. Why didn't he appoint here?
He knew she was very confident, She was very devoted
(11:15):
to him.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Dewey was progressive enough to appoint Unice to his team
and express admiration for all of her hard work. But
why was it so hard for him to help her
move to the bench. It's clear she was a star
on the rise. But her career seemed to plateau while
the men in the good old boys network surrounding her
kept climbing to success. I honestly can't say I'm surprised
(11:40):
that Dewey had no problem taking advantage of Unice's support
and expertise without letting it pay.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Off for her.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But why was unus so loyal to Dewey when he
didn't seem interested in helping her without benefit to himself.
It all seems to follow that old axum. Black people
have to work twice as hard to get half, and
that's not accounting for the unique challenges of being a
black woman. Unis may have felt that a judgeship could
(12:08):
have created a legacy for her, would have written her
more firmly than anything else could have into the pages
of American history, but it didn't happen. That's not to
say she didn't make an impact. Unice's work with Dewey
did leave a precedent of sorts that continues to influence
the modern justice system. Unice didn't pioneer these things, but
(12:32):
she was part of a pivot in the American legal system.
Like Dewey's joinder law used so effectively to convict Lucky
Luciano in association with his co defendants. Modern iterations of
that law are still in use to this day, sometimes
in ways that UNICE would have supported.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
It's actually what groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center
used to bankrupt the Ku Kuk Klan in certain cities.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
But in the criminal world, laws like the Joinder law
have often been used in ways that are heavily racialized,
like targeting gang violence in la and New York.
Speaker 7 (13:10):
Those investigations are often heavily raced based. They're looking for
young black men who have certain associations, who wear certain
kinds of clothing, and really sweep in large numbers of
people in the community in the effort to try to
turn back gun violence in a particular area.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
We've even seen it used against protest movements.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
We've seen that in the state of Georgia, where the
governor has gone after activists attempting to stop the creation
of a large training facility near Atlanta called cop City.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
None of these were inventions of UNISES, and she's not
responsible for the way they've evolved into their current forms.
But I do wonder whether history would have remembered units
better if she'd worked against the system as it was then,
instead of from within it, whether or not she yearned
to dismantle it change it. With her very presence in
(14:07):
those rooms of power, history has seemed to remember the
radicals and the protesters a little more clearly. I think
back to her essay breaking Through that road map of
sorts she wrote for her own career trajectory, but also
of the people of Harlem trapped in the modern ghetto.
(14:32):
Could she have imagined that nearly a century after she
wrote those words, thirty eight percent of those imprisoned in
the US are black, despite being only thirteen percent of
the country's population, removed from their communities in service to
a sprawling brand of law enforcement that her own work
(14:52):
helped lay down in history.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
A problem with situations like Unice Carter is if you
are the one person, if you are one of few people,
and you don't have meaningful access to power in that office,
and you don't have a meaningful voice in that office,
(15:19):
it too easily devolves into tokenism. Right, It's too easily
transformed into Now the institution is using you to validate
itself because it's gone out and created a more diverse workforce,
and you yourself find that two years, three years in,
you really haven't been able to shift the institution.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Unice, perhaps sinsing that the judgeship was never going to happen,
quits the world of law for good in the early
nineteen fifties.
Speaker 7 (15:50):
If you are somebody who is trying to rock the boat,
you are always subject to the status quo rocking it
right back. And that applies for anyone rocking the boat,
but I think it applies with special force to black
people who are trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Unice's guiding belief has always been help me further my
career and I'll be loyal to you. But the flip
side of that coin is the toll it ends up
taking on Unice's personal life, because when those dreams don't
come to fruition, she looks for someone to blame and
finds him a little closer to home.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
She was never made a judge, but I think she
always felt that it was because of Alvius' politics.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
As in Eunice's younger brother Addie and William's only son
Alfaeus hunting. When there's anything going on in my life,
(17:03):
good or bad, I turned to the group chats, A
bad date, a single thumbs down, emoji a good date,
thumbs up A very very good date. Well that gets
full sentences.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
My impression of Unice is not that she was someone
who had a lot of close girlfriends or friends who
she really talked to about everything that was going on
with her internally, people who she hung out with and
gossiped with and confided in.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
The picture I see of Unice in her later years
is a lonely one. I find myself yearning still to
know what kind of friend Unice was, Who does she
share secrets with, share her dreams with? But there doesn't
(17:54):
seem to be any of that in Unice's life. For
a while, Unis has one friend, Mary McLeod Bethune.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Bethoon was that person, even though they had kind of
a mentor mentee relationship, but you know, they were also close.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Mary McLeod Bethune is a civil rights activist and educator.
Unice met through her mother, Addie Hunton, but they eventually
have a major falling out over something that seems kind
of trivial looking back. Unice is hoping to be chosen
to represent the National Council of Negro Women at a
major event, but she isn't and for some reason or
(18:32):
another she blames Mary for the fact that she was overlooked.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
That was just a sad thing. You know, when you
watch two friends break up, and it's just depressing. I
think sometimes her personal relationships they weren't always great.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
There's another anecdote about Unice that also speaks to me
about her loneliness. It's a memory of Lyle Carter Junior's,
Unice's only child. He lived most of his childhood away
from his parents, often on long stays with extended family
and Barbados. But on one occasion, when Lyle Junior is
around eleven or twelve, he finds himself alone with his
(19:13):
mother and Eunice asks Lyle Junior for advice. Does he
think she should get a divorce from her husband? His father.
There have been rumors of affairs throughout Unice's marriage to
Lyle Carter sor her dentist husband, but there's something tragic
about the idea of Unice asking her pre adolescent son
(19:34):
for advice. She could have used a girlfriend at that moment.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Her marriage, from what we can tell, wasn't the happiest.
I can't say for sure why that was, and I
certainly am not influenced to blame it on her ambition,
just doing my personal principles. But yeah, but I reading
(20:05):
the correspondence with Bathoon, I can see how her attitude
would make personal relationships difficult for her.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sometimes she could have used even a sibling to turn
to at that moment, But Eunice's path and the path
her younger brother Alfaeus took they went in totally different directions.
Alfaus Hunting was a scholar and an activist who was
a tall, slim man with a thick mustache and eyebrows.
(20:39):
Possibly Alfaus had been her companion during the riots in
Atlanta and their mother's adventures in Germany. Like Eunice in adulthood,
Alfaus is committed to the project of racial uplift.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Not only African American people, but all people of color
and fighting for working class rights, fighting for unions, fighting
for national liberation against colonialism.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Also, like his sister, he works with some major leading
figures like Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Boyce.
But unlike Unics, who remains in the Republican Party her
entire life, Alphaeus takes a sharp political left turn.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Alpheus was a communist, like a real communist.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
The same year that the Trial of the Century unfolds,
Alpheus makes a career choice of a very different kind.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
In nineteen thirty six, al Faeus officially joined the Communist Party.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
He was active with a lot of left wing organizations.
He was a supporter of Mao and Stalin. He was,
you know, the real deal.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I think that was the beginning of the troubles for Alphaeus.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
It's fascinating to think of Alphaeus finding his way to communism.
My siblings and I are all very different from each other.
But my older sister, the firstborn, is the golden child
of the Fa family. She always does the right thing
and is the kind of person who waves as strangers
like they're best friends. She also keeps the peace. My
(22:09):
mother says, I'm her rebel, but I tend to set
up tougher boundaries than my sister and my brother. Plus
I'm the middle child, It's my birthright to cause a
little havoc. Alphaeus is the baby brother, the only boy.
I wonder if part of the reason these two siblings
are so different is so that they can stand out
(22:30):
from each other. Like Uni studies at Smith, a predominantly
white private women's college, with her fees paid for by
a wealthy friend of their mother. Alphaeus, on the other hand,
works as a railway porter at a train station through
his college years at Howard University, a historically black school.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I'm not saying he became a communist because he was
frustrated that his sister's college was paid for and his wasn't,
But he would have been hanging out with pullman porters
and getting exposed to the labor movement. He did have
very different experiences.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
In nineteen forty one, as Unice is playing the perfect
respectable Republican, the FBI is creating a file on her
younger brother. One day in May, Alfaz is reading a
newspaper when he comes across his own name. It's in
an article which states that the House of Unamerican Activities Committee,
(23:24):
created to examine any behavior considered to be a threat
to the public like communist thought, has branded him a communist.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
He actually read in the newspaper the charges against him
before he was informed by the committee that he was
even being charged.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
He writes to the committee demanding the right to testify,
but it's not until the following year that he receives
a letter from the FBI exonerating him of all charges.
But as the years progressed, his file grows thicker notes
reports associations.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Presumably al Faeus saw in socialism and communism the path
for African American equality and black liberation. I think Unice
saw a different path.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
As their paths diverge, Eunice and al Faus clashed publicly
with each other.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Not directly, but they were ideologically opposed on a lot
of things. For example, when Thomas Dewey was running for President,
ALTHEUS was calling him a reactionary in the press, which
I'm sure she didn't like very much.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
By the early nineteen fifties, Unice has given up Act
of Law and is working with a few prominent black
women's associations on their domestic and international efforts.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
She was at the founding of the United Nations, I
think on behalf of the National Council of Negro Women.
After World War Two there was a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
One of those things is the UN Convention on Genocide Postwar.
The Convention aims to define genocide so it can be
considered an international crime.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And in the early fifties there was a movement to
get the United States to ratify the Convention.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Unice wants to get the US on board, and for
a while it's a family affair because so doaes alphaeis.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Eunice testified before the Senate in favor of for ratification.
She was actually the only black person to testify for it.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
But there are significant levels of pushback against the idea
of ratification in America. One in particular, becomes a sticking point.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
One of the arguments against the US's ratification of the
Convention was that the US itself was in violation of
the Convention. The number one concern was because of the
prevalence of lynching and overall because of the treatment of
black Americans.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Imagine Units going to the podium wearing one of her
white lace collars is the nineteen fifties, sir hat and
gloves probably would have been on points. She's standing in
front of a panel of senators, a room full of
people behind her. She speaks some of the few words
we have of hers that have lasted through the years
(26:21):
to be brushed off and examined again in the harsh
light of present day.
Speaker 8 (26:27):
The situation of the Negro people in this country is
in no way involved the lynching of an individual or
of several individuals has no relation to the extinction of
masses of people because of race, religion, or political belief.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Over seventy percent of people lynched in America were black.
That's at least three thousand, four hundred and forty six
Black Americans. Up until nineteen sixty eight that we know of,
lynching was off in a form of vigilante justice, with
white people hanging and mutilating black people accused of any
(27:06):
number of crimes from loitering to making eye contact to
sexual assault without any formal charges, a way of eradicating
black life based on race. It was absolutely a form
of genocide. So we don't know whether UNUS really believed
this or not, but I think she felt we want
(27:27):
to get it ratified. We need to convince people that
it's not going to cause problems for the US, and
so this is what I'm going to say. It's hard
to remember our icons could have been as flawed as
the rest of us, especially when you have to follow
certain cultural moras. Don't speak ill of the dead, don't
disrespect your elders, don't share family business with outsiders. We
(27:49):
see it when it comes to looking beyond Martin Luther
King Junior's legacy to see him as a human being
who may have made mistakes in his marriage. He became
a martyr of civil rights movement, and to speak beyond
his accomplishments is to be disrespectful. It's disappointing that Unus
would argue that lynching should not be a part of
(28:10):
this basic human rights consideration. But if that is how
Unus feels, her brother Alphaeus does not agree.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Alpheus was not willing to make that concession. An organization
that he worked with, called the Civil Rights Congress, drafted
a document called we Charge Genocide, which was submitted to
the UN, essentially saying yes, the situation in the US
is exactly the type of thing that the Genocide Convention
speaks to, and Alpheus was involved in drafting it and
(28:40):
was also a signatory to the document.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I wonder if Unus was angry with her brother for
being at such cross purposes. It probably caused a lot
of tongue wagging for this brother and sister to be
so at odds. Did Unis take Alphaeus's stance as a
personal attack against her.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I don't think he was doing it personally. It wasn't
about her, but I think Unis probably, both in that
situation and in the Thomas Dewey situation, felt very undermined
by him. She probably felt frustrated that he was taking
public positions. She probably took his politics a little personally.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
I think that she took the wrong stance. I think
because of her background in law enforcement, she knew it
was the wrong stance. I think that it was either
incredibly naive or disingenuous for her to blame her brother
for the limitations that were placed on her in a
Jim Crow racist, sexist society.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's a rift they never come to rectify. In the
year that followed Unis testifying, in nineteen fifty one, Alphaeus
stood before the House of Unamerican Activities Committee time in person.
He refuses to give up the names of those who'd
contributed to a civil rights fund which had come under
the scrutiny of the committee.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And because al Fais took the principled stand that he
would not divulge their names, he was sentenced to six
months in prison.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
He had a vision of what he thought was best
for the world, and he was willing to sacrifice a
lot personally for it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
After that prison stint, was over, Alfaus finds it difficult
to get a foot back on the ladder of politics
in America.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
A lot of the organizations that he had worked with
sort of fell apart. He basically couldn't find work in
the US, and he ended up spending most of the
rest of his life in Africa.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
For the rest of her life, Unice will blame her
failure to see of a judge ship on Alpheus's communist misadventures.
Maybe it was easier to point the finger at someone
she felt had betrayed her than to confront the fact
that Dewey, someone she'd been loyal to, had let her down.
Maybe it was easier to blame her brother, a black man,
(31:19):
than it was to point the finger at Dewey, a
white man with power. Whatever the reason, as Unice aged,
she'd broken off her relationships with her brother, was living
in a rocky marriage, had strained her relationship with her son,
and had lost her only friend. When people looked at
(31:41):
Unice as she moved into later life, what did they see.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
When I was growing up? The image I had was
more just a stern faced woman with like a fur coat.
I think I had this idea that she were for
a goat?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Is that from some pictures that you saw now?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I think it came from just the way my dad
talked about her.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Leah Carter is the great granddaughter of Eunice Hunt and Carter.
Leah's voice has been featured throughout the series. Her contributions
have been some of the only direct contact I found
with Unice when searching for a sense of who she was,
above and beyond her historical record. As well as being
Unus's great granddaughter, Leah has spent time carrying out meticulous
(32:41):
research for her father's book. Her father is Stephen L. Carter,
a lawyer, professor, and author and Eunice Carter's grandson.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
She was apparently always very glamorously dressed and put together.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Before Leah spent her days going through archives, letters, journals.
There were the bright yet hazy details passed down to
her from the childhood memories of her own father.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I knew a few things that my dad had told
stories about her, just as his grandmother. I can't remember
if he said that she wore her coats or I
just ad lipped that in my mind, but that was
sort of my childhood image for her.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Leah's father remembers unus as a stern grandmother and an
imposing presence. The grandchildren were all a little scared of her.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
She would correct his grammar, and he always said she
used the type of person who would correct to the
way that they were using their silverware at dinner.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
That makes sense to me. Eunice in her life always
had to be pristine. She was detail oriented, and she
was often in the kinds of spaces that were full
of white people who probably looked for the slightest flaw
on how she carried herself or communicated. She probably tried
to train her grandchildren for the harsh world she'd experienced.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
She traveled a lot in her life. Her life went
on a lot of cruises, and I don't know if
that sort of added to their image of her as
like kind of an imposing, faraway figure.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
What stands out to me is how Eunice's accomplishments always
seemed to keep her on the edges of time, from
the Luciano trial to her own family law.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
When I was younger, she was just this figurehead of
here's the type of thing you're supposed to be achieving.
Not that anyone ever told me that you too should
be accomplished as Unis, but just I think that's probably
what I would have felt like her father and her
father's father and Eunice herself. Leo became a lawyer, but
(34:41):
it was only when researching her great grandmother that Leah
discovered the earlier parts of Unice's professional life, including one
aspect that overlapped with a writer who reminds me of
Unis in many ways. I thought about this way back
in episode two. I didn't know that she had been
a writer. One of my favorite facts was she was
inducted into the Harlem Writers Guild along with Zorn Neil Hurston,
(35:07):
which was so amazing to me. I was like, oh,
my gosh, that's my great grandma. Hey, I was Sara
in Hurston really overwhelmed by that.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Unice achieved a lot of recognition in her own time,
especially in the black press. It's no exaggeration to say
she was famous all over America, but her current day
legacy seems to be fading in real time. That's a
big part of why I decided to do this podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I could go on about this for a while, about
the way that we talk about or don't talk about
black history in this country, the way that we treat
black history as separate from history. I certainly felt, especially
when I was very young, what we were taught about
black people was that nobody had really done anything until
(35:57):
quite recently. That there was slavery, and then everyone was
a sharecropper for a while, and then the civil rights
movement happened, and now everything's great. And I'm not saying
we shouldn't talk about slavery or sharecropping. Obviously those things
are really important, But there are so many things that
black people have done that have been forgotten or kind
(36:18):
of just buried, and that is very frustrating.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Eunice Hunting Carter is responsible for the most sensational trial
in the history of American organized crime. Why does her
legacy only seem to survive in the realm of hazy
childhood memories of a stern, older woman in a fur
coat correcting grammar. She was a legend in the making
long before the Lucky Luciano trial.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Obviously she intimidated her grandkids, but I think she intimidated
a lot of people in real life. She was just
kind of a fierce person.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
It's hard to know what kept Unis from her judgeship
or why someone with such an outstanding work ethic and
influential connections did not go further in her career. Is
it just enough to point the finger at racism and misogyny?
Was she too dedicated to her ambitions? Her years as
a Harlem socialite proved she knew how to let her
(37:22):
hair down and shake a tail feather. What exactly was
the secret password that would have opened up her career
and made her a household name. I wish I had
that time machine so I could go back and ask
Thomas E doing look here, fella, what gives? He'd probably
have me sent away and lobotomized. But I still try
(37:45):
to fight for my girl. Unis would she had fought
for me? I can relate in many ways to Unis,
the pressure of navigating predominantly white spaces while they constantly
in your right to be there, having a strong idea
of how you see your career going, and trying to
(38:06):
be a team player while others take credit for your work.
I know what it's like to be too direct with
firm boundaries, or to be called unlikable as shorthand for
she won't let me bully her. I even know what
it means to stay in an unhappy relationship for security
and status. But I've never been good at brown nosing
(38:29):
or staying loyal to someone who doesn't seem to support
my growth. I also wouldn't sacrifice my community for the
sake of a greater good that doesn't take my people
into consideration. If Unison I met today, she'd probably be
aghast at the lack of structure in my working life,
but maybe she'd secretly admire the freedom of my dating life.
(38:53):
I'd let her read my memoir and poetry. I think
she'd be proud to see me making a living out
of my createsivity and disappointed that the only dining silverware
etiquette I know is outside in and looking for Unice's story.
(39:14):
I am reminded of all the other black women in
America who have had their stories buried or forgotten.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
If you do something valuable with your life, it's still
valuable even if people don't remember it. The influence that
you have while you're alive matters, even if after you're
gone everyone forgets about you. Even though that's frustrating, but
I think it doesn't mean that it was all for nothing.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Legacy is important to me. I understand Unice's desire to
leave her mark on history. Time has worn it down,
but if you know where to look, you can still
make it out. I have a fear of being forgotten,
that my life, my art, my work will disappear, and
I don't even have a fourth of Unice's accomplishments. But
(40:13):
as I've learned about Unice Hunting Carter, I know that
someone somewhere down the line will find a faint marking
of me. And even if it's only one person who
tries to track down the history of me, that will
be enough. As a child free woman, I don't have
(40:35):
children who will bless me with grandkids and great grandkids
who might one day research and write a book about me.
Fortunately Unice Hunting Carter does, and now we can see
that she was a complicated, fascinating, perhaps unlikable, definitely beloved
and smart woman whose tenacity took down New York's most
(40:58):
notorious gangster amid the racism and sexism of nineteen thirties America,
and who fought just as fiercely for herself. And one
of those great grandchildren has some advice for you.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Find these stories, dig them up if they've been buried.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
You've been listening to the Godmother.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
My name's Leah Carter. I am Eunis Carter's great granddaughter.
My dad, Stephen Carter, wrote the book Invisible, the Forgotten
story of the black woman lawyer who took down America's
most famous mobster, and I did a lot of the
research for that book.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
I'm Marilyn Greenwald. I'm a professor of of journalism at
Ohio University, and I'm the author of five biographies, including
one of Eunice Hunting Carter.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
My name is Robert Whalan and I'm an emerathus Professor
of history at Queen's University of Charlotte here in Charlotte,
North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Hi, my name is Ellen Paulson.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
I research and I write books about women who were
involved with notorious gangsters and desperadoes.
Speaker 6 (42:28):
I am Claire White and I am the director of
education at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.
Speaker 7 (42:35):
My name is Brandon Busky and I am the director
of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
My name is Tony Passanowski and I am a independent
historian and author. Aside from Dorothy Hunton's biography of her
husband Alveus, my book is the only standalone biography of
Alfaus Hunting.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
The Godmother is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio. For more
from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The Godmother is hosted
and written by me Nicole Perkins. Our producer is Leona Hamid.
Additional production from Ajuajima Broumpong, Ronald Young Junior and Zianna Yusuf.
(43:25):
Our editor is Ajua Jima Broompong. Additional story editing from
Max O'Brien and Mitha Lee Raw and our researcher is
Zaiana Yusuf. Additional research from Mohammed Ahmed. David Waters is
our executive producer. Field production by Tnito Romani and Pallas Shaw,
Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempsen. Our score
(43:46):
was written, performed and recorded by Jeff Parker. Music supervision
by Nicholas Alexander and David Waters. Production management and endless
patients from Sharie Houston, Sarah Tobin and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact
checking by Fendell Fulton and Donia Suleiman. Story development by
Madeline Parr, Jess Swinburne, Esseiana Yusuf. Willard Foxton is our
(44:11):
creative director of Development. Special thanks to Leah Carter, Stephen Carter,
Angela J. Davis, Andrew Fernley, Marilyn Greenwald, Sondra Lebedy, Katherine Godfrey,
Nadia Maidie, Amalia Sortland, Sean Glenn, Neil Krishnan, Julia Bromberg,
(44:32):
Katrina Norvelle, Carly Frankel, and all the team at w
Emmy
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Novel
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