 Many of the major drug traffickers in the United States emerged during the early-to-mid-1960s, such as Leroy "Nicky" Barnes, Guy Fisher and Frank Lucas, taking advantage of the increasing political strength during the civil rights movement.Previously dependent solely on the political and police protection of New York's Five Families, African American gangsters were more able to negotiate with outside criminal organizations and the Cosa Nostra's control over the ghettos began to wane.By the early 1970s, the large narcotics empires created by Nicky Barnes, Frank Matthews, and Frank Lucas began expanding beyond Harlem as Lucas sought to ultimately control a large-scale drug trafficking operation by gaining control of a network from Indochina directly to the streets of ghettos across the country.