The Structure of Birmingham’s Mafia

I will make no attempt to identify definitive Cosa Nostra ranks and membership lists using the limited available information on Alabama’s mafia organization. I hesitate to theorize even about Giuseppe Caterinicchia’s position even though there are strong indications he held stature within the mafia hierarchy. However, neither will I trivialize what existed in Alabama by claiming no such formal hierarchies existed. Though some may feel these designations are arbitrary or defacto in the pre-1931 American mafia and it’s true there are only a small minority of researchers who care enough to make these distinctions, if we want to accurately document this shadow government we have to approach its formal structure with the same precision the members themselves do and did.

Investigations into the Fratellanza organizations in Palermo and Agrigento revealed those early Sicilian groups to have structure and protocol near-identical to what we know today, even identifying the rank of capo di decina, the same position later shortened to capodecina that was further corrupted phonetically into “caporegime” in the United States. The Sangiorgi Report at the turn of the century also revealed that ranks like caporione (literally “district boss”, akin to Family boss) and sostituto existed in Palermo at that time, with Nicola Gentile using capo and sostituto to refer to the boss and acting boss positions in the United States. Gentile also used both capodecina and capo di decina in a manner identical to what the earlier Fratellanza investigations discovered.

Castelvetrano native Dr. Melchiorre Allegra, made into the Pagliarelli Family of Palermo by Ignazio Lupo’s in-laws the Motisis circa World War I, also described the positions of capo / rappresentante, consigliere, and capo della decina along with a description of the sostituto or acting boss position. FBI wiretaps and cooperation from informants around the country in the 1960s showed that numerous American bosses and made members still used terminology consistent with 19th century Sicily, including capo for boss (not captain, as the term has come to mean in modern America) and its synonym rappresentante, both of these terms used by Nicola Gentile to describe the position in America between his induction into the Societa Onorata in Philadelphia in 1906 through his deportation as a Gambino member in the late 1930s.

Interestingly the term that fluctuates the most over time is the name of the umbrella organization itself, be it mafia, Cosa Nostra, Societa Onorata, or the similar Fratuzzi and Fratellanza, among others. In America it’s taken on English euphemisms like “the outfit” and other casual adaptations. Though it appeared primarily in Sicily, Fratellanza was used even in America by early sources like Secret Service informant Salvatore Clemente, showing continuity between the American mafia of the early 20th century and the Sicilian groups discovered in the 1870s and 1880s. Joe Bonanno clarifies in his autobiography that the umbrella organization has no true name, even rejecting Cosa Nostra, preferring to refer to the mafia as his “tradition”. Indeed it was a tradition for men from Sicilian mafia lineages like the Castellammarese Bonanno and his son Bill, who inherited the tradition from their own elders.


Though highly organized, Bonanno states Cosa Nostra was nameless.
Applying formal terminology to Alabama and Birmingham is impossible but we should still view the organization, which existed contemporaneously to these other sources, through this framework rather than taking on the antiquated outsider view that these were “Black Hand gangs” or that a disorganized collection of Italian criminals were waiting for men like Salvatore Maranzano and Charlie Luciano to organize them into “La Cosa Nostra”. Early sources show the organization to have used different terms for the mafia but the organization was continuous dating back to 19th century Sicily and it was strikingly consistent in the way it was organized and propagated itself despite massive cultural changes that took place in America.

Bill Bonanno stated that Birmingham, Alabama, had a formally recognized Cosa Nostra Family, which implies that all of the known rules applied there. Different organizations utilize slightly different set-ups, some having more captains than others or even no captains at all, and some like Stefano Magaddino chose not to utilize positions like consigliere, though Magaddino was well-aware of the position and explained to the benefit of the FBI (and us) why he chose not to allow the election of a consigliere in his Family in which the membership would vote for a candidate.

Just as Families require formal recognition to form and then proceed to elect positions like rappresentante and consigliere, the Alabama group similarly voted to disband, but they did so by contacting the Commission and received formal representation from a national leader in the absence of their own defunct organization. Bill Bonanno’s account, albeit limited, shows that Alabama members were committed to the rules and formalities of his father’s “tradition” even when choosing to withdraw from active participation. That is not the action of a “gang” but rather the shadow government these men transplanted from Western Sicily.

The mafia in Alabama was not simply Sicilian, it was informed by intricate networks of relationships formed in specific Western Sicilian strongholds connecting Agrigento to the provinces of Trapani, Palermo, and Caltanissetta. Just from the few names and scraps of information we have available, Alabama can be linked to the DeCavalcante, Gambino, Tampa, Kansas City, Chicago, and Boston Families. It can also be linked to Nicola Gentile, who was in turn connected to virtually every node in the international network. Bill Bonanno was right: Cosa Nostra had a presence in Birmingham, Alabama.

Post-Script: Reconciling with Bill Bonanno

Bill Bonanno's reference to Birmingham attracting immigrants from Palermo appears to be true to some extent in that Palermo province in addition to the other Western Sicilian provinces like Agrigento, Caltanissetta, and Trapani provided mafia figures in the area but I have yet to see evidence that Palermo citta had an influence in Birmingham. Urban Palermo also doesn't fit the labor and farming trades taken up by Sicilian immigrants in Alabama.

The Sicilian villages that played a large role in Alabama inside and outside of Cosa Nostra are rural and the mafia organizations in those locations were regarded as "peasants" by metropolitan Palermitani according to sources like San Giuseppe Jato Family pentito Giovanni Brusca, a compaesano of the Zitos who spent time in Kellerman. Alabama appears to have been a "peasant" mafia, both because it existed in labor communities in and around Birmingham but also because its members came from rural villages. What they may have lacked in refinement, they made up for through avid networking and adherence to their own secretive systems.

Bonanno's belief that boss Tom Gagliano of the Lucchese Family was tasked with representing what remained of Birmingham on behalf of the Commission is curious. Gagliano and much of the Lucchese Family descended from Corleone and though Corleone is near many of the locations discussed here, it doesn't appear to have had a significant immigrant colony in the area. Corleone is not mentioned in the report on Birmingham’s historic Sicilians despite other nearby villages being mentioned. Perhaps Gagliano was chosen randomly or maybe Bill Bonanno was mistaken, though it's guaranteed there are connections we are unaware of that could have played a role in this arrangement if true.

When a Family is disbanded, a Cosa Nostra axiom requires that the remaining members be assigned to another Family even if they are inactive. Cosa Nostra is at its core a system of representation and these men would need to be represented. When the Newark Family disbanded during the same period, its members were assigned to various New York Families. Of course, Newark is in close proximity to NYC and there was a high level of mafia activity in the area, New Jersey's extensive mafia membership wanting to remain active in crime, business, and social affairs within the mafia network. Alabama was very different from New Jersey, obviously.

This process even played out in Sicily, Dr. Melchiorre Allegra stating that the Castelvetrano Family dissolved itself temporarily due to pressure from Mussolini’s Fascist government. Allegra didn’t say who this Family was assigned to, if they were in fact assigned to another group during this period of chaos and intense prosecution. We know that formal represenation is necessary in Sicily when a Family doesn’t exist in an area, though, as Antonino Calderone described how members inducted in his hometown of Catania were first brought into a Palermo Family a significant distance from Catania and only later was Catania allowed formal recognition as an autonomous Family.

The only other known example we have of an American Family willingly voting to disband — Newark was allegedly forced to do so by the Commission — is the Madison Family of Wisconsin. Milwaukee member and FBI informant Augie Maniaci was informed of this decision in 1973 by a Rockford member and learned that two members of the long-quiet Madison Family wished to remain active in mafia affairs and were thus assigned to Milwaukee. The affiliation of the other members was not reported to Maniaci, if he knew, though protocol would have required they belong to an organization somewhere

Perhaps the other Madison members were assigned to Chicago given many of them first lived there and once belonged to that Family. Chicago also represented Madison on the Commission during their time as a formal organization, increasing the possibility of this arrangement. In the late 1920s there was also a separate Family in Chicago Heights whose leadership was killed and the organization was merged with Chicago, forming a decina there, though no inside sources elaborated on whether the organization in Chicago Heights voted to disband or, like Newark, were forced to do so. There was precedent for Chicago absorbing former members of nearby groups at least, though it’s easier to understand when it’s an organization in the same region that represents what’s left of a defunct one.

A similar process plays out even inside of Cosa Nostra Families. Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno was recorded by the FBI discussing an elderly member of his Family who retired to the Jersey Shore. This man was failing to meet the Family’s requirement that a member contact his capodecina at least once a month to check in, as this old timer was content to retire from Cosa Nostra in his old age. However, Bruno explained that even if the man didn't want representation, he had non-member relatives who might need the services of the organization in the future and therefore he should follow protocol by touching base with his captain in order to maintain his standing even though it was a mere formality.

Stefano Magaddino discussed a similar situation on his own FBI bug, referring to an unnamed elderly member of an unspecified Family whose capodecina had died. This senior member never reported in to be reassigned to a new capodecina and Magaddino was incredulous. To Magaddino this breach in time-honored protocol was outlandish and he struggled to understand why the member failed to follow mafia custom.

If Bill Bonanno's account is true, the remaining Alabama membership may have officially belonged to the Lucchese Family. This is unintuitive to outsiders, where the idea of elderly Alabama members belonging to a New York City organization makes little sense when viewing these groups through the lens of a "Crime Family", but this is the same umbrella organization that allowed the Bonanno Family to maintain crews in Arizona and Montreal. The Bonannos did not micro-manage these satellite crews but rather represented them. This article also made reference to the Gambino Family’s Baltimore crew, itself barely involved in crime by the 1960s: a decina equivalent of the Madison Family.

The nature of these arrangements becomes clear, however, when Cosa Nostra is viewed as a system of representation. This doesn’t discount its inherent criminality, it simply expands our understanding and shows it to be more than a glorified gang. Cosa Nostra is an insular society with its own system of government, this terminology used by the members themselves. Gambino turncoat Sammy Gravano famously invoked this perspective when he decided to cooperate and told the FBI, “I want to switch governments.”

Bill Bonanno's description of Birmingham is valuable but should be taken loosely. He was told of their existence generations after they disbanded and even if his source had firsthand knowledge, be it his father or someone else, it was an ancient event in an obscure location long forgotten by most mafia members. Bill's view is helpful but there are already indications his information was at least partially inaccurate.

Bill Bonanno said that the youngest member of the Birmingham Family was 80-years-old at the time they requested dissolution in the mid-1930s and in turn the youngest "prospect for membership" was 74. It's extremely unlikely that this highly-specific information would be known to Bill Bonanno or even accurately remembered by older members. It would also mean the "youngest" member he referred to was born circa 1855, a year inconsistent with the names discussed in this article. He also states that by 1938 no members remained alive in Birmingham.

Even if some of the Alabama mafia figures discussed here were not members, and I'm sure not all of them were, there is strong evidence that Giuseppe Caterinicchia was at least a member and possibly a Family rappresentante given his ties to important national figures like Boston boss Gaspare Messina and Gran Consiglio member Nicola Gentile. Giuseppe Caterinicchia was born in 1861 and died in 1958, a year after the doomed Apalachin meeting, making Caterinicchia the strongest refutation of Bill Bonanno’s claim.

Caterinicchia's brother-in-law Pasquale Amari was born in 1865 and died himself in 1944, staying in Alabama unlike Caterinicchia who died in New Jersey late in life. Amari committed a mafia-like murder in Ribera and was related at least through marriage to DeCavalcante and Chicago mafiosi, but if Amari was not a member, the question is who did they induct or allow to transfer into the Alabama Family if not someone like him? Other mafia-linked individuals who remained in Birmingham like Vincenzo Asaro from Cianciana raise similar questions. He was born in 1871 and died in 1955, being buried in Birmingham.

The dissolution of Madison shows that a Family’s break-up doesn’t necessarily involve all members reporting to the same Family afterward. Only two were assigned to Milwaukee, the rest apparently going elsewhere. I won’t speculate whether the remainder of Alabama’s membership were represented by different Families like Madison, though their compaesani connections would have been relevant to this political matter even if it was mere formality. Alabama aside, Giuseppe Caterinicchia and his son-in-law Baldassare Mangiaracina both died in New Jersey, Caterinicchia being a few years shy of 100-years-old. The Caterinicchia-Amari clan’s ties to the DeCavalcante Family and their shared roots in Ribera make it reasonable to wonder if Giuseppe Caterinicchia died as a decrepit and unknown DeCavalcante member in New Jersey, most of its historic membership never identified but drawing heavily from Agrigento.

There is no reason to suspect Alabama had a large Cosa Nostra organization. Sicilian Families are significantly smaller than those in the United States and Sicilian pentito Leonardo Messina stated that the formation of a Sicilian Cosa Nostra Family required a minimum of ten members in order to receive formal recognition from the organization’s larger governing body. The early American Families modeled themselves after Sicily and Birmingham's Italian community was made up of immigrants from mafia hotspots well-positioned in international networks, so even though Alabama’s mafia group was likely small they had a viable recruitment pool available to meet their limited needs.

If the Family's youngest prospect was 74-years-old circa 1935, he would have been born in 1861, the same year as Giuseppe Caterinicchia. The Caterinicchia-Amari-Mangiaracina clan in Russellville and Birmingham alone had many younger male relatives and in-laws conditioned by Cosa Nostra's subculture, making it unlikely they were lacking recruits given the Sicilian tradition of recruiting via kinship and hometown. The city of Birmingham would have had even greater numbers of young men from similar Western Sicilian backgrounds who may not have had significant criminal operations but were molded by a philosophy more important to the mafia than specific crimes or businesses.

We can't directly refute the information presented in Bill Bonanno's Last Testament, as we lack the inside sources necessary to clarify these details. In context with the information presented here, I don't believe his information is fully accurate, though. Bill did us a service by confirming Birmingham's existence as a recognized American Cosa Nostra Family but beyond that fact we must reconcile his information with other available resources.

Adding to doubts about the specifics mentioned by Bonanno are his references to the Newark Family, which he elaborates on in the same section where he discusses Alabama. The Newark Family is an obscure entity, too, though its proximity to New York and the many sources in that area have provided us with a general picture of what that organization consisted of and what transpired before and after the break-up of the Family. Bill's information on Newark is erroneous, raising further doubt about his Alabama anecdotes, an area even less known to him and the older men he knew.

Among Bill’s mistakes, he states that Salvatore D'Aquila was part of the "Masseria Group" and the "local leader" of Newark, describing how after D'Aquila's murder he was replaced by Manfredi Mineo. D'Aquila was in fact replaced by Mineo, that much is true, but I'm sure Michael DiLeonardo and his Gambino mentors, the son and nephew of D'Aquila, not to mention Michael's grandfather Vincenzo, would get a kick out of the idea that D'Aquila was a Masseria-sponsored Newark boss. D’Aquila was a Masseria rival and the boss of the future Gambino Family. He was also the capo dei capi, giving Joe Masseria no authority over him, a factor that led Masseria to orchestrate D’Aquila’s murder and assume his national title.

While the gist of Bonanno's information on Newark's disbandment is basically consistent with other sources, the group being broken up around the mid-1930s after several years of tension with the New York families, his specifics are lacking. Other sources and deeper research into the Newark group shows them to be active until around 1937, when the Family boss survived an assassination attempt and his father was killed, resulting in their absorption into New York Families. Bill states that Newark disbanded in 1934 or 1935, a trivial distinction I can't judge him for, but it does raise even greater doubt about his highly-specific information on the even murkier Alabama Family, including the ages of the members and their formal relationship to Tom Gagliano.

This article would not have been possible without Bill Bonanno's decision to publish a final memoir where he shares anecdotal knowledge of Birmingham. No matter how accurate or inaccurate his information is, to him I owe my initial inspiration to explore this organization. However, his information should be viewed as a springboard for further research and not a definitive source on the mafia in Alabama. I believe the available evidence supports Bill Bonanno’s claim that the organization disbanded sometime around the 1930s, which is as good of a guess as any barring direct confirmation from a member who was there at the time.

The "Birmingham Family" existed and then ceased to exist, but it may be more accurate to refer to it as the Alabama Family when examining the wider geography of its known mafia-connected individuals and clans. Our limited sources tell us this was a Sicilian-centric Family with ties to other Families who shared compaesani with the immigrant colonies in Alabama and these mafiosi fell into the same networks. The Alabama Family was likely limited in terms of size and influence, with changes in immigration and local prejudices from non-Italians greatly stunting its growth, but it represented the members within its jurisdiction. It followed the same patterns and principles found nationally and internationally under the umbrella of Cosa Nostra and by understanding that perhaps we will someday understand more about it.

Just as Bill Bonanno’s account of Alabama should be approached critically, my work here may have details that prove to be inaccurate or that I misinterpreted in some way. The sheer amount of people, places, and connections I’ve attempted to organize was a daunting process and I’ve done my best to draft meaningful analysis of this information and present viable connections based on my obsessive interest in this world I have no experience in. I’m confident this is the most substantial resource on the Alabama mafia currently available but my hope in publishing this article is that it leads to new information and interpretations even if it proves my analysis wrong. Maybe there is another Bill Bonanno still out there who was told about the mafia in Alabama and someday he’ll come forward, however unlikely that may be.