Gangster's Daughter

Nov. 27, 2007— -- The new film "American Gangster," has sparked conversations all over the country -- in barbershops and salons, cubicles and street corners about the myth and the man, Frank Lucas.

One of the most notorious gangsters in New York history, semi-literate Lucas rose to become a major importer and seller of heroin on the streets of Harlem in the '60s and '70s, amassing millions of dollars in the process.

One thing missing from the film was the impact of Lucas' legacy on his daughter, Francine Lucas, who grew up at times with both of her parents in prison.

Today Francine Lucas lives a quiet life with her family in Florida, far away from the Harlem streets where her father made a name for himself.

In a recent interview with ABC News, Lucas recalled what her childhood was like as the daughter of the American gangster.

A Regular Dad

"What I remember about my father growing up was that he was just like any other father," Lucas said. "I never saw the other side of him, what he did on the street or what his line of work was. He was a regular father that came home every day."

Her childhood, filled with mornings cooking breakfast with her dad, designer clothes and thousands of dollars worth of toys, was shattered once Lucas learned where the money to pay for it all came from. When she was 9 years old, her parents were arrested for selling narcotics, and Lucas began to piece together who her father was and what he did for a living.

The next years of her adolescence were spent moving around as her parents drifted in and out of prison.

"We had to go into the witness protection program. At one point, they changed my name. I had to constantly disguise who I was."

When she did settle down, Lucas retreated from friendships, hoping to avoid talk about family, knowing that through much of her childhood her parents were in prison. "I never talked about it to any of my friends, because I knew they would tease me."

"Being a child of incarcerated parents means that you have to live with shame, because there's a lot of stigma when it comes to your parents being in prison," Lucas said. "You're depressed a lot. You're very lonely, and you have a lot of feelings of loss and abandonment."

Now 35, Lucas is determined to reach out to children whose parents are incarcerated, hoping to prevent at least one child from going through some of the agony she did as a child.

"One day I was in the car, and I had the phrase 'children of incarcerated parents' just scroll through my head. Before that I wasn't aware of how huge the problem is in this country."

Determined to get the word out about her cause, Lucas founded yellowbrickroads.org, a young but growing organization dedicated to helping children whose parents are in jail or prison.

Lucas is beginning to get feedback that her activism is helping others, but it's also been therapeutic for Lucas.

"It's helped me heal my wounds," she said. "I've been ashamed all my life, but people can appreciate that even though my father did what he did, I'm a different person."

She's enthusiastic about her work, but Lucas is still trying to reconcile the loving father she knew as a young child with the violent drug kingpin depicted in the film.

"I can't say I'm proud about him for what he did, by any means. I can say that I'm ashamed actually."

But Lucas did go to the "American Gangster" premiere.

"I just had a mixture of feelings during that movie," she said. "I had to keep reminding myself that this was my dad, my mother on the screen."

Despite her feelings from childhood and the difficulty of seeing her father's crimes depicted on the screen, Lucas loves her dad.

"You know I can't say that I would change my father, because I do love him."