Stephanie St. Clair

Stephanie Saint-Clair (December 24, 1897[1] – December 1969) was a French gambler who ran numerous criminal enterprises in Harlem, New York, in the early part of the 20th century. Saint-Clair resisted the interests of the Mafia for several years after Prohibition ended; she continued to be an independent operator and never came under Mafia control. She ran a successful numbers game in Harlem and was an activist for the black community. Her nicknames included: "Queenie", "Madam Queen", "Madam St. Clair", and "Queen of the Policy Rackets".

Stephanie St. Clair

Early life

Stephanie Saint-Clair was born of mixed French and African descent in the West Indies to a single mother, Félicienne, who worked hard to send her daughter to school. According to St. Clair's 1924 Declaration of Intention, she gave Moule Grandterre, French West Indies (present-day Guadeloupe, West Indies) as her place of birth, not Martinique as has usually been cited.[2]

When Stéphanie turned 15, her mother became very ill and she had to leave school. She managed to save some money and, after the death of her mother, finally left Guadeloupe for France in 1912. Even though she could read and write, a rare quality for a black woman at the time, she could not find decent employment.

She immigrated to the United States via Marseille on The Guiana, arriving in New York on July 31, 1911.[3] She used the long voyage and subsequent quarantine to learn English. In Harlem, she fell in love with a small-time crook, Duke, who soon tried to prostitute her. She returned to New York, learning that Duke had been shot in a fight between gangs. After four months, she decided to start her own business, selling controlled drugs with the help of her new boyfriend, Ed. Much of this speculation about St. Claire's early life is derived from a biographical novel, Madame St-Clair, Reine de Harlem, by Martinican author Raphaël Confiant (available in English translation as Madam St. Clair, Queen of Harlem).

After a few months, she had made $30,000 and told Ed she wanted to leave him and start her own business. Ed tried to strangle her and she pushed him away with such force that he cracked his skull against a table and died. For months afterwards, she employed her own men, bribed cops, and on April 12, 1917, invested $10,000 of her own money in a clandestine lottery game in Harlem. As a result of her success running one of the leading numbers games in the city, she became known throughout Manhattan as "Queenie", but Harlem residents referred to her as "Madame Saint-Clair".[4]

Numbers game involvement

She was involved in policy banking, an admixture of investing, gambling, and playing the lottery. Many banks at this time would not accept black customers, so they were not able to invest legally. Policy banking wasn't technically legal, but it was the only way for black individuals living in Harlem to invest their money. In this way she used the underground economy in Harlem to address race politics.

At this time the numbers game in Harlem was male-dominated and Saint-Clair was one of the only women involved. Saint-Clair helped the black community in Harlem by providing many with jobs as numbers runners and other jobs within her business. Because of her success in the numbers game, she lived a lavish life making over $20,000 a year in the 1920s.[4][5][6]

Police corruption

Saint-Clair was known to put out ads in the local newspapers educating the Harlem community about their legal rights, advocating for voting rights, and calling out police brutality against the black community. Several times she complained to local authorities about harassment by the police. When they paid no heed she ran advertisements in Harlem newspapers, accusing senior police officers of corruption.

The police responded by arresting her on a trumped-up charge and she spent eight months in a workhouse. In response she testified to the Seabury Commission about the kickbacks she had paid police officers and those who had participated in the Harlem numbers game. The Commission subsequently fired more than a dozen police officers.[5]

Conflict with the Mafia

After the end of Prohibition, Jewish and Italian-American crime families saw a decrease in profits and decided to move in on the Harlem gambling scene. Bronx-based mob boss Dutch Schultz was the first to move in, beating and killing numbers operators who would not pay him protection.

Saint-Clair and her chief enforcer Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson refused to pay protection to Schultz, despite the violence and intimidation by police they faced. St. Clair responded by attacking the storefronts of businesses that ran Dutch Schultz's betting operations and tipping off the police about him. This resulted in the police raiding his house, arresting more than a dozen of his employees and seizing approximately $12 million (about $172 million in 2019 currency). Saint-Clair never submitted to Dutch Schultz like many others in Harlem eventually did.[4]

After Saint-Clair's struggles with Schultz, she had to become legitimate and stay away from the police, so she passed on her criminal business to "Bumpy" Johnson. Eventually her former enforcer negotiated with Lucky Luciano, and Lucky took over Schultz's spots, with a percentage going to "Bumpy". The Italians then had to go to "Bumpy" first if they had any problems in Harlem. Luciano realized that the struggle with the Five Families was hurting their business, so Schultz was assassinated in 1935 on the orders of The Commission. Although St. Clair was not involved with his murder, she was remembered for sending an infamous telegram to his bed that stated “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” The telegram reportedly made headlines across the nation. By the 1940s, "Bumpy" Johnson had become the reigning king in Harlem, while Saint-Clair became less and less involved in the numbers game.[4][5][6]

Later life

After Saint-Clair retired from the numbers game, she started a new era of her life as an advocate for political reform. In the late 1930s, Saint-Clair met her husband, Sufi Abdul Hamid, known as the "Black Hitler"[7] for his anti-Semitic, Nazi fashion of activism. Hamid was a militant activist and was the leader of an Islamic Buddhist cult. Saint-Clair and Hamid's marriage went downhill quickly when he started cheating with a black fortune teller known as "Fu Futtam" (Hamid would go on to marry "Futtam", real name Dorothy Matthews, and they founded a Buddhist temple together).[8]

Hamid and Futtam/Matthews attempted to open a business with Saint-Clair's money, and their marriage officially ended in 1938 when Hamid was shot. Saint-Clair was charged for shooting at him and spent 10 years in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York. After she was released from prison, Saint-Clair continued her work in informing those in the community of their civil liberties. She continued to write columns in the local newspaper about discrimination, police brutality, illegal search raids, and other issues facing the black community.

Death

She died quietly and still wealthy in 1969, shortly before her 73rd birthday. One year earlier, "Bumpy" Johnson, who came back to live with her and to write poetry, had died.[4][5]

Portrayals

References
  1. According to her 1924 Declaration of Intention, she was born on December 25, 1897.
  2. Source Citation: National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, DC; ARC Title: Index to Petitions for Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906; NAI Number: 5700802; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21
    Source Information: Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
  3. Source Citation Year: 1911; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 1715; Line: 20; Page Number: 28
    Source Information: Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
  4. Stewart, Shirley (2014). The World of Stephanie St. Clair: An Entrepreneur, Race Woman, and Outlaw in Early Twentieth Century Harlem. Peter Lange Publishing Inc.
  5. Harris, LaShawn (2008). "Playing the Numbers Game: Madame Stephanie St. Clair & African-American Policy Culture in Harlem". Black Women, Gender and Families. 2 (2): 53–76.
  6. "Stephanie St. Clair profile". The Mob Museum. Retrieved June 28, 2016.
  7. Harlem Renaissance lives from the African American national biography. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, 1945-, American Council of Learned Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009. pp. 235–36. ISBN 978-0195387957. OCLC 262889383.CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. Harris, LaShawn, 2016. Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City's Underground Economy University of Illinois Press. Pages 98-99. ISBN 978-0252081668
  9. "A story from the street where she lived", The Boston Globe; accessed June 28, 2016.
  10. "Celebrity Crime Files: Lady Gangster", imdb.com; accessed June 28, 2016.
Preceded by
Peter H. Matthews		 Policy racket in New York City
circa 1923–1932		 Succeeded by
Dutch Schultz
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