I recently came across this amazing photo (via@ meccapolis IG). Boxing legend
Muhammad Ali is flanked (l-r) by Philly Black Mafia legends Shamsud-din Ali and
Nudie Mims (supposedly in 1980).
Mims, also known as Ameen Jabbar, died in prison in 2012
while serving a life sentence for his role in one of the city’s most infamous
crimes. In 1971, Mims and some of his
Black Mafia confederates robbed DuBrow’s Furniture Store in South Philly,
killing one employee and setting many others on fire. (The robbery/murder/arson is discussed @12:45
in the 2007 BET American Gangster episode,“Philly Black Mafia: ‘Do for Self’.”)
The Ali photo was likely taken while Mims was briefly out of prison following the
May 1980 PA State Supreme Court granting of a retrial.
Mims would soon be re-arrested after police executed a search warrant and discovered cocaine, a Thompson machine gun, an Israeli Army Uzi
submachine gun, strainers, scales, and other drug-related equipment in his apartment. When back in prison, Mims was crucial to
major heroin deals in the Philadelphia area, working with Black Mafia and
Italian-American organized crime figures.
Shamsud-din Ali (then known as Clarence Fowler) served time
in prison for murder in the early 1970s until his conviction was
overturned. While in Philly’s notorious
Holmesburg Prison, Fowler (like Mims years later in equally-infamous Graterford
Prison) was an influential figure inside the institution and on the
street.
Shamsud-din Ali garnered national attention in 2005 when he
was convicted of various racketeering charges in a massive federal corruption
probe in Philadelphia which originated with a drug investigation. He was sentenced to approximately 7 years in
prison and was released in 2013.
Fowler’s/Ali’s ties to the boxing world have spanned
decades, as I have documented elsewhere.
As many know, his daughter Lakiha (“Kiki”) is married to another boxing
legend, Mike Tyson.
For more on these fascinating and complicated circumstances,
see my earlier post on Muhammad Ali and Philadelphia’s Black Mafia and/or:
