00:00 Frank Lucas was one of Harlem's biggest drug dealers.
00:04 Look, I bought Harlem. This neighborhood was mine. I was the one who made the law.
00:08 He projected the image that a drug cake was supposed to be like.
00:13 I had everything. English luxury cars, German, American, and so on.
00:18 He's a brute. He's trying to intimidate you.
00:21 He had no problem breaking someone's skull with the back of his knife.
00:25 Frank controlled everything, from the packaging, down to the consumer.
00:31 He did the best that he knew how to do. He didn't think he could have made other choices.
00:38 Well, you're making a lot of money here. You're going to have to fight for every cent.
00:42 You're going to run after every penny.
00:44 [music]
01:04 Harlem, 1965.
01:07 [music]
01:32 Tango is feared in the neighborhood. Rumor has it that he killed at least two men with his bare hands.
01:39 Tango liked to extort money from the people in the neighborhood.
01:44 And Frank Lucas realized that he could make a name for himself by killing Tango.
01:50 To trap him, Frank lent Tango $5,000 in cash.
01:56 He knew that Tango would not pay him because he was a brute and he would never pay him.
02:03 Frank waited two weeks before asking Tango to pay him. But he ignored him.
02:10 And when Frank refused to give in, Tango rushed at him.
02:17 But Frank was ready. According to his words, he pulled out a gun and shot him in the chest.
02:27 This murder deeply marked all the inhabitants of Harlem.
02:33 They knew that if I asked them to do something, they would do it now.
02:40 For all his life, Frank Lucas sought power and respect.
02:47 [music]
02:56 Frank Lucas was born on September 9, 1930 in La Grange, North Carolina.
03:01 A rural town 95 km from Raleigh, the state capital.
03:08 It was probably the worst kind of year to see the day, a year after the Wall Street crash.
03:13 Times were really tough.
03:15 Frank Lucas is the eldest son of a peasant family.
03:18 For his parents, feeding nine children was a daily struggle.
03:22 Life was really tough. And I swore that if I got out of it, I wouldn't live like this.
03:29 My father's grandparents were slaves.
03:32 My father grew up in extreme poverty.
03:35 Sometimes his parents could only offer an apple as a Christmas present.
03:39 The blacks in the south of the United States had to face the hostility of the whites.
03:45 Jim Crow laws were in force.
03:47 They governed racial relations, and it was segregation that dominated in this part of the country.
03:53 In those days, it was still the age of segregation.
03:58 Separate, but equal, which meant that facilities were divided into white facilities and black facilities.
04:06 In the rural community where Frank lived, the Ku Klux Klan punished all those who did not know how to stay in their place.
04:13 [music]
04:16 Frank Lucas was six years old when he witnessed their brutality.
04:20 He tells that one night in 1936, five men from the Ku Klux Klan arrived at the family farm in search of his cousin, 13-year-old Obadiah.
04:31 They said that in town, my cousin had seen a white woman, and that he had seen her in a strange way.
04:41 When Obadiah opened the door, the men from the Ku Klux Klan dragged him into the yard.
04:46 They tied him to a tree and put a gun in his mouth so violently that he broke his teeth.
04:51 To finish, they pressed the trigger.
04:54 [music]
04:57 It was one of the saddest days of my life, and it still is today.
05:02 Because he taught me how to handle myself.
05:05 I loved him, and they killed him for nothing.
05:08 [music]
05:10 Shortly after, Frank Lucas' father had an altercation with the sheriff and left the city.
05:15 After his departure, the young boy tried to help his family in any way he could.
05:21 He even took the drugs out of the suitcases that left the local drug store.
05:25 I waited outside until a man was on the road.
05:28 I came in slowly with a stick and hit him in the head.
05:31 Then I took his money and ran home.
05:34 I think that when you have to do those kinds of things to survive,
05:38 I think you start to end up not making the difference between what's right and what's wrong.
05:44 [music]
05:47 Maybe because he was very young at the time, his attacks went unnoticed.
05:51 But in 1942, Frank Lucas, who was 12, was caught while he was flying in a grocery store.
05:57 The judge sentenced him to life in prison, but the young boy didn't stay there very long.
06:02 [music]
06:05 There was an old black man named Jimmy Reeves. I'll never forget him.
06:08 He told me that if I could, I had to run away, that I had to go home because there was no future here.
06:13 [music]
06:15 He followed his advice and managed to escape.
06:18 He arrived on the road where, despite his prisoner outfit, a car agreed to take him and drive him to Kentucky.
06:24 [music]
06:28 Frank Lucas traveled south and survived thanks to the generosity of foreigners.
06:33 [music]
06:36 The teenager couldn't go home. His mother warned him that the police were looking for him.
06:41 [music]
06:44 He settled in Wilson, North Carolina.
06:47 [music]
06:49 He found a job in a factory and took the owner's daughter. She is white.
06:55 [music]
07:00 They kept their secret relationship until the day when a driver of the company, white, surprised them.
07:06 [music]
07:34 He knew that this fight would cause him trouble, so he ran away.
07:38 But before leaving, he stole $400 and set fire to the warehouse.
07:42 [music]
07:47 When his mother discovered what he had done, she put him in a bus that went north.
07:52 His destination? Harlem.
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