Emily Yancy

Cotton Comes to Harlem

"Reverend" Deke O'Malley, a conman, is selling shares at a Harlem rally, for the purchase of a Back-to-Africa movement ship to be called The Black Beauty. During the rally, several masked gunmen jump out of a meat truck and steal $87,000 in donated cash from the back of an armored car. Two Harlem detectives, Gravedigger Jones and "Coffin" Ed Johnson chase the car, and a bale of cotton falls out of the vehicle, unremarked at the time. Uncle Budd, a scavenger, finds the bale of cotton and sells it for $25 to a junk dealer, but later buys it back for $30. There is a reward out for the $87,000, and Gravedigger and Coffin deduce that the money was probably hidden inside the bale which had fallen out of the getaway vehicle during the chase. After accusing Reverend O’Malley of stealing the money and taking him captive, Detectives Jones and Johnson are able to blackmail Tom, a mob leader, to give them $87,000 - to be restored to the original donors - after discovering that Uncle Budd has run off with the stolen money and emigrated to Ghana, to live in retirement with his ill-gotten gains. Harlem's African-American population is being ripped off by the Rev. Deke O'Malley, who dishonestly claims that small donations will secure parcels of land in Africa. When New York City police officers Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson look into O'Malley's scam, they learn that the cash is being smuggled inside a bale of cotton. However, the police, O'Malley, and lots of others find themselves scrambling when the money goes missing.