I think that things started to change between italians and black during the 60s and 70s due street gangs emerging, political climate, demographics and also the heroin epidemic.Guys like nicky barnes were no longer just street peddlers they controlled the drug trade throughout the city because they could buy wholesale and sell it at retail which made them maximum profits. This obviously put alot of people out of business including mid level mob guys because everyone had to buy off of people like barnes. Also black neighbourhoods became unsafe for lcn operatives to work in.
Heres an excerpt from a study that sort of explains the transition.
As Chicago’s black belt expanded, Ralph Pierce, the successor to Murray Humphreys and Sam Hunt, organized a circle of black lieutenants who supervised gambling in African-American areas. Pierce was reportedly the Outfit’s overlord of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Wards, which included Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Grand Crossing and other South Side communities.
Pierce’s black lieutenants included Osborn Fraser, John Womack and James Robinson.Chicago’s South Side black community was not only expanding but also undergoing extensive change. Working and middle-class blacks, attracted by the lure of the suburbs, began to move out of Chicago’s South Side. In addition, Chicago’s economy was undergoing a massive restructuring, which saw a tremendous decline in the number of blue-collar jobs. Wilson reports that Chicago lost 326,000 manufacturing jobs between 1967 and 1987.
The disappearance of work had tremendous consequences for life in the inner city. The departure of the middle-class was followed by the exit of the commercial institutions they once supported. With no jobs available, Wilson argues that young men made rational decisions to “hustle on the streets” resulting in an increase in crime. As the crime rate soared and street gang activity increased, it became harder for white gangsters to operate in black areas. This point was brought home when one of Ralph Pierce’s top lieutenants suffered a merciless beating at the hands of street gang members who ordered him out of their turf. Mobster Angelo Volpe, who had obtained control over the Windy City policy wheel, also found himself the victim of intimidation by black gang members and was forced to hire his own group of black gang youths to protect him on the day-to-day rounds of his policy operation. The decline of traditional organized crime activity in the black community was underway. Changing political and social realities made it increasingly difficult for the Outfit to operate in inner city areas. Government action against policy operators and the decline of Chicago’s celebrated Black Metropolis all contributed to the decline of policy gambling. The creation of the Illinois Lottery in 1980 furthered hastened this decline. Policy, however, did not disappear entirely. Chicago Police and federal authorities were taking enforcement action against policy operations as late as 1989 when the U. S.Attorney’s Office seized ten policy stations in a civil forfeiture action. The properties seized were part of the Reuben-Linda lottery.
Chicago Police estimated that the Reuben-Linda lottery had been in existence for six years from 1983 to 1989 and had taken in an estimated three million dollars a year in revenue.
The interesting thing about the ReubenLinda lottery was that its writers took bets, ranging from 25 cents to fifty
dollars, on the results of the daily Illinois Lottery. This allowed the bettors to see the numbers drawn on television each day, which insured the integrity of the game. In spite of persistent rumors, no evidence was ever uncovered
of Outfit involvement in the Reuben-Linda operation. The Outfit had lost its control over Chicago’s South Side while black organized crime continued
http://uic.edu/orgs/kbc/ganghistory/Ghetto/Blackmafia.pdf
