Sunday 19 October 2014

Stephanie St. Clair - "Queen of Harlem"

There has not been many true "Queens of The Underworld" but this lady was certainly one.  She withstood threats & intimidation from Dutch Schultz, even avoiding a hit team he sent to eliminate her.  She also battled against corrupt cops who were used by their Italian paymasters to put rivals out of business.  One way or another.  In the end, Stephanie St. Clair died an old and very rich woman.  How many Italian mobsters could boast that?  Stephanie also had another angle that has never been widely acknowledged.  Not only was she a woman, but she was black!  She arrived in this world in 1886, though it is disputed where she was actually born.  Some say Martinique in the East Caribbean, others say an island off Mexico.  What is not in dispute was that she entered the USA from that great city of European crime, Marseilles.

    Stephanie arrived in the States in 1912, settling in Harlem, where ten years later, she invested $10,000 she had into a numbers racket, or Policy, as it became known as.  By the following year, 1923, she was one of the biggest policy operators.  She had previously been associated with an Irish gang known as the Forty Thieves, but decided to branch out on her own.  What made it safer for her was a man she brought in as enforcer, bodyguard and trusted number two, was the formidable Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. He was later the mentor to Frank Lucas and was portrayed by Moses Gunn in the Shaft films.  The only problems Stephanie encountered throughout the twenties, was not from the Italians - they had the upper hand on Prohibition - but from cops.  She did pay out regular bribes, but some of the Mob, in particular Dutch Schultz, resented the fact that a woman and that she was black, was making a great deal of money.  Some names applied to her obviously did not go down well.  "Madame Queen of Harlem" was one, another was "The Tiger From Marseilles".  She was arrested by cops on a trumped up charge, and went to prison for eight months.  She had made many complaints to authorities about police harassment, but was ignored.  She responded by putting articles in local newspapers about payoffs she was forced to make to senior cops.  She later gave evidence to a commission investigating corruption.

    Prohibition ended in 1933, which saw a substantial drop in turnover for the Mob, so Schultz decided that the numbers racket in Harlem was now his.  Schultz his men dishing out violence and intimidation to those who refused to pay to him, and of course, a good few murders to make his point.  Stephanie and Johnson withstood violence and intimidation from corrupt cops sent out by Schultz.  He sent an assassination team to kill her but she managed to avoid them by hiding under a huge pile of coal.  Bumpy Johnson approached Lucky Luciano, and a deal was struck.  He took over Schultz`s policy rackets and cut Bumpy in.  If the Mob had any problems in Harlem, the Mob had to go to Bumpy.  Then Luciano had Schultz taken care of.  Whilst he lay dying in hospital, Stephanie sent him a message "As ye sow, so shall ye reap".  Now Bumpy was gaining huge power and influence so Stephanie started slowly moving away from the numbers game, and she died in Harlem in 1969, a very rich woman.

4 comments:

  1. Another fine update on a rather intriguing figure from the past century. St Clair was indeed a formidable women and probably the first female black ‘gangster’ that really controlled a substantial element of organised crime in a rough part of New York. One thing is for sure, no body of any colour got in the way of Luciano getting his share of the proceeds of any major criminal venture, and it has been confirmed by some of his close associates, that he did indeed meet with Bumpy Johnson on a few occasions, and quite possibly took his side in the war against his old street associate Dutch Schultz who became a loose cannon and made his intentions clear as to where he felt blacks belonged and how he wanted to eliminate Thomas Dewey the special prosecutor of NY at the time, which in hindsight I’m sure Luciano would have agreed as he gave the nod for Dutch to be killed which ended up with Dewey turning his attention on Luciano and sending him away for running a prostitution racket (which some figures of that time claim was a trumped up charge to get Lucky off the streets). But as for St Clair, she must have lived a life, witnessing the opening of organised crime and associating with some real legendary cats!

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    1. Hello again, Twister. At the moment I have been covering more of the obscure mobs and "guvnors" that make up the bulk of the underworld. One I am looking at for a post is about a NY kingpin, Owney Madden, who hailed from Leeds! He was put forward as a real godfather of NY by George Raft, who was hired as a driver. You`re right about the claims of a fit up of Luciano, but sometimes people can be brought down by the simplest of things. By all accounts, he approved the killing of Schultz, as he was thought of as bad for business. In all, St Clair paved the way for Bumpy, Matthews, Barnes & Lucas. On top of it all, she died rich, something most villains do not. Kindest Regards Daryl

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  2. Owen Madden, now that was the real deal. They don’t make them like that anymore. I heard about him whilst reading books on the roaring twenties and I do have an interest with early NY gangs such as the Gophers, Dead Rabbits, Five Points etc, and Madden was amongst the cream of these street brawlers and out and out killers. Strange how very little is known of the man, considering he was on the same level as Costello, sat on the national syndicate and apparently was followed for almost every day of his life during his retirement by the FBI. British criminals of today wouldn’t be fit to polish his boots. We have clowns like Courtney craving to be acknowledged when the real British top guy to sit with the elite, Madden has been shamefully ignored. All the best pal.

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    1. Hi Twister, sums up when Raft called Madden the "King of New York" Yet he retained his yorkshire accent!! Not surprisingly he has been ignored, yet it makes my blood boil to hear people still go on "The krays this, the krays that" yet they could never have achieved the heights he reached. The reason I feature obscure gangs or villains, is to redress the balance and show just how wide and diverse the underworld is. Yep, Courtney is a complete wanker. A legend in his own lunchtime. Thanks once again, and I`ll look more into NY gangs. Daryl

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