Samuel Christian
*Samuel Christian was born on this date in 1939. He was a Black mobster and the founder of the Philadelphia Black Mafia.
Samuel Christian was a former member of the Black Panther Party from Philadelphia, PA. Christian was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list as a suspect in the 1972 murder of Tyrone "Fat Ty" Palmer, who was shot in the face at Club Harlem, and as a suspect in the 1973 murder of Major Coxson and shooting of several others at Coxson's residence. Because no witnesses testified against him, he was not convicted of either murder.
Arrested, Christian used an alias and jumped bail until he was apprehended in Detroit in 1973, seven days after making the Most Wanted list. Christian was convicted and imprisoned for the robbery and the shooting of the NYPD officer. By the time Christian was paroled in November 1988, the once-dominant syndicate he'd helped run had been decimated by law-enforcement pressure and internecine warfare, and the Philadelphia underworld was fractured for good.
He was arrested for possession of crack cocaine in 1990 while supposedly advising the ill-fated successor group to his own, the Junior Black Mafia. The last public mention of him was on January 22, 2002, when he was arrested for a parole violation. Also known as Richard Carter, Sam' Beyah' Christian, and Suleiman Bey, he changed his name upon joining the Nation of Islam. Eventually, he became a captain in their paramilitary unit, the Fruit of Islam. Samuel Christian died on March 6, 2016.
