Major Benjamin Coxson was born in 1929 in Fairbank, Pennsylvania to Israel and Maybell Coxson. Coxson was a powerful drug dealer and power broker in Philadelphia who served as an intermediary between African-American and Italian-American organized crime groups.Ĭoxson was murdered at his home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in 1973 which the police theorized that the Philadelphia Black Mafia killed him for his failure to broker a heroin deal with the New York Mafia. Coxson was a flamboyant entrepreneur and civil rights activist who co-owned a Philadelphia nightclub with activist Stanley Branche, was close friends and neighbor to Muhammad Ali, and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Camden, New Jersey in 1972. 1929 – June 8, 1973), also known as The Maj, was an American gangster from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mount Lawn Cemetery, Darby, Pennsylvania, U.S.
