MOBSTER OF THE DAY: WHO WAS 1930S BUMPY JOHNSON

In Harlem, Ellsworth Raymond ``Bumpy'' Johnson was The Man.

The man who stood up to mobster Dutch Schultz. The man who financed breadlines during the Depression. The man who some say introduced heroin to Harlem. The man not to be messed with.

``I guess Bumpy would be called a gangster, but I rather hate to use that label to describe him,'' says historian and author John Henrik Clarke, recalling the Harlem legend who died in 1968 at age 62.

``Bumpy was a gangster with a social conscience. He may have taken from the [black] community, but he also gave back,'' says Clarke, 82, professor emeritus of African world history at Hunter College in New York City and a Harlem resident who knew Johnson well. ``You don't find these so-called gangsters nowadays doing any such thing.'' READ MORE ABOUT BUMPY HERE