Stephanie St. Clair
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Stephanie St. Clair (1886 – 1969) was a French black woman born in Martinique. She immigrated to America via Marseilles in 1912 and ten years later took $10,000 of her own money and set up a numbers bank in Harlem. She became known throughout Manhattan as Queenie, but Harlem residents respectfully referred to her as Madame St. Clair. She became affiliated with the 40 Thieves gang, but it was not long before she branched off on her own and ran one of the leading numbers games in the city.
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[edit] Turf war with the Mob
After the Great Depression struck, together with the end of Prohibition, white gangsters saw a decrease in profits across the board and decided to move in on the Harlem gambling scene to make up for their lost profits. The mobster Dutch Schultz muscled in, beating and killing the numbers operators.
Queenie and her main enforcer Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson refused to give in to Schultz, but the wave of violence was wearing them down. She complained to local authorities about harassment by the NYPD, and 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 in response she testified to the Seabury Commission about the kickbacks she had paid them. The Commission subsequently dismissed more than a dozen police officers.
However, the turf war continued, and eventually Bumpy Johnson approached Lucky Luciano, negotiating himself into the position of enforcing the will of the Mafia by supervising black numbers operators and bookmakers. He came to Stephanie St. Clair and attempted to persuade her to come with him. She refused, but Bumpy carried on doing his best to try and protect his former boss until both realized the struggle could no longer go on, and together both of them managed to organize a truce with Schultz. Queenie was allowed to live so long as she continued paying the Family Tax to the Italians.
Schultz was assassinated on the orders of Lucky Luciano in 1935. St. Clair had nothing to do with his murder, but is remembered for sending a telegram to his hospital bed. It read, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." This incident made headlines across the country.
[edit] Popular culture
She was portrayed by Novella Nelson in the film The Cotton Club (1984), Cicely Tyson in the film Hoodlum (1997) and Fulani Haynes in Katherine Butler Jones' play titled 409 Edgecombe Ave, The House on Sugar Hill (2007).[1]
| Preceded by Peter H. Matthews |
Policy racket in New York City circa 1923-1932 |
Succeeded by Dutch Schultz |
