The Fort Bragg deaths thread reminded me of this. My dad and older folks still talk about it. Also, the Fort Hood murders/deaths are odd. I didn't want to detail the other threads.

Phenix City was a major southern mafia/organized crime hub in the early to mid 20th century. They were engaged in prostitution, drugs, murder, extortion, all of it. It was likely fueled by the vices of the young men in Fort Benning right across the river. People pretty much ignored it until soldiers started turning up dead. The Alabama governor and Eisenhower had to enforce martial law there to take control.

Not related to Fort Bragg or Fort Hood, but an interesting story that most people don't know about.

Link: https://crimecapsule.com/the-dixie-mafia-the-mob-you-never-knew/

What an interesting story and period! That was an enlightening and even somewhat amusing read in places. You may be right. These recent events that seem so dis-connected to anything that makes sense may have nothing at all to do with national politics or agendas inside or out, but rather be tired to manifestations of an underground crime network in the vicinity.

This here struck me as what would happen if the Democrats crack down on ammunition too much. It would go like prohibition and a whole new brand of organized crime would get rich with many Main Streets indifferent to it:

Quote:

---

The Dixie mafia wasn't yet done, as Janice Branch Tracy records in her book Mississippi Moonshine Politics: How Bootleggers & the Law Kept a Dry State Soakedafter the cleanup of Phenix City, many of those same criminals from east Alabama simply moved west across the state line, where they could set up shop once more. Again, because bootlegging was such big business, Tracy writes, local law enforcement in Mississippi often turned a blind eye to distilling hooch: the profits simply benefited their own counties, towns, and (sometimes) families too much.

---

My wife's family was very connected to the Mississippi mafia. Very interesting stories!

There was a lot of organized crime in the south during that era. If you have ever seen the original Walking Tall movie with Joe Don Baker it tells the story of Sheriff Buford Pusser fighting his local mafia in Tennessee. My guess is that a lot of the federal intervention during the civil rights movement s of the 1960s was also targeting local mafias.

This kind of activity was later caricatured in Boss Hogg on the Dukes of Hazzard, but it was serious and deadly business in the mid-20th century.

Good podcast called In The Red Clay about the Dixie Mafia. Very interesting FYI.