Well whenever there's talk about black gangsters a common theme is them "surpassing" the Italians one way or another. There's always an Italian vs black angle, where the underdog blacks are underestimated but they eventually rise above the racist guineas. It's always just rumors or outright fabrications.

For example in a recent documentary about Matthews there was talk about the mob wanting to kill him(but of course, they were scared ) because he moved into the Todt Hill neighbourhood, and supposedly Paul Castelano and Tommy Lucchese were pissed at him. The only problem with this is that Frank Matthews moved into Todt Hill in '71. I don't know if Castellano lived there, but Tommy Lucchese died in '67. So the story is obviously ducktales.

All of these documentaries and books are always poorly researched, if researched at all. They take the word of old time fringe players as gospel, and then you have the detective types that chased them or prosecuted them, who play along just to themselves look good, as they always did.