Brigette Davis

Legal.

And in fact, slaves could play these lotteries too and win.

And one in particular did just that, a famous slave, Denmark Vesey, who went on to lead a slave revolt years later.

But at the time, 1799, he bought his freedom from the proceeds of a lottery he won, $1,500.

So that was incredible and extraordinary.

However, that and other incidents like that really prompted the new government and the state government to essentially ban lotteries and make them illegal.

It was too egalitarian.

And so the answer was to just outlaw it.

And that's what they did.

For like 100 years, until the mid-60s, they decided that, you know, state officials decided that there was too much money being made in this underground lottery business, this numbers business that black folks were running and profiting from, and that they wanted that money.

They wanted in.

What was the role of the numbers in the black community?

I mean, it's hard to overestimate how important the numbers were in the Black community.

But the big thing, besides the social piece, which is huge also, it was a communal social experience, and that was important.

But also, those big numbers men were race men, and they believed that they should take their wonderful largesse and reinvest in the community.

That was just

what they did.

And that was vital because discrimination and segregation had made it so that black folks had a lot of services that were not available to them.

And numbers men stepped in to provide them something as important as providing a home loan for, you know, a black person or family that cannot get a traditional mortgage.

Numbers men would provide the loan money for that.