Meet One Of New York’s Most Notorious Female Gangsters
It might be a man's world, but this woman ruled it. Meet one of the most notorious female gangsters in New York. Her life of crime took her to the top.
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Stephanie St. Clair aka Queenie aka Madame St. Clair was the numbers queen of Harlem. Queenie was born on December 24, 1897, in Martinique, French Caribbean. She was Creole (African and French descent). When she was 12 years old, her mother got sick and Queenie had to drop out of school to help care for her. When her mother died, Queenie left Martinique for Montreal, Quebec, Canada around 1910. Her time in Montreal was short. She headed to New York City in 1912. Queenie found her new home in Harlem with a small-time criminal named Duke, who tried to prostitute her. Duke was killed in a gang fight and Stephanie decided to start her own business. With the help of her new man Ed, Queenie began selling drugs, according to Wikipedia. She became known as the “Queen” of the illegal numbers racket in Harlem.
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She was a female boss and sometimes a gangster. She used strategy and force to keep other gangsters, like Dutch Schultz and the Italian Mafia, out of Harlem. When Shultz was shot in 1935, Madame Queen sent a telegram to his hospital bed which read, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap". According to The Mob Museum,
"By 1930, she was reportedly worth $300,000 (the purchasing power of about $4.3 million today)."
She was very well off for being a Black woman during the 1920s and 30s. She reportedly lived at 409 Edgecombe Avenue, the most luxurious building in Harlem at the time, which was located in the Sugar Hill section.
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According to The Mob Museum, in 1929, Madame was caught carrying numbers betting slips, which resulted in her spending eight months in state prison. She served more prison time later for shooting and wounding her then-husband, Sufi Abdul Hamid, known as the "Black Hitler". When she retired, she passed her operation on to her lead enforcer Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. Stephanie died in Harlem in 1969 as a wealthy woman.
St. Clair was portrayed by Novella Nelson in the 1984 film The Cotton Club.
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Cicely Tyson played her in the 1997 classic movie "Hoodlum."
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