12 Facts About Casper Holstein

Casper Holstein was a prominent New York mobster involved in the Harlem "numbers rackets" during the Harlem Renaissance.

Casper Holstein's father was a landed mulatto who owned a butcher shop and owner of a large farm.

Casper Holstein's mother was the daughter of an officer in the Danish Militia.

Casper Holstein was eventually able to devise a lottery system based on those principles.

Casper Holstein saw himself as having a political mission which would be undermined by violence and dropped out of active or central involvement overseeing street collection.

Casper Holstein continued on the periphery as a wholesale lay off gambler for several years but was arrested and stopped in 1937.

Casper Holstein was a major donor towards charitable purposes such as building dormitories at black colleges, as well as financing many of the neighborhood's artists, writers, and poets during the Harlem Renaissance.

Casper Holstein bought the mortgage on the New York hall of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and allowed it to continue to be used as a black function hall until the Marcus Garvey organization collapsed.

Casper Holstein helped establish a Baptist school in Liberia and established a hurricane relief fund for his native Virgin Islands.

Casper Holstein was a regular contributor of articles to the NAACP newspaper Crisis.

Casper Holstein controlled a large scale numbers-running operation, as well as nightclubs and other legitimate business.

Casper Holstein was released three days later, insisting that no ransom was paid.