I love the Harlem Renaissance era and as I read many different accounts of Casper Holstein, Bumpy Johnson, Langston Hughes, Nicholas Brothers and many other pivotal players in the era. One person whose name I could not avoid is Stephanie “Madam Queen” St. Clair. She is acknowledged as the queen of policy banks in 1920’s Harlem, what we would today consider the lottery.

Stephanie St. Clair carved out a piece of the New York rackets during the 1920’s, battling mobsters such as Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano.

She arrived in Harlem shortly before the Great Migration, which saw millions of African-American men and women leave the segregated South for the North. Early on St. Clair was a leader of the 40 Thieves, a local New York Gang, that ran extortion and theft rackets.

St Clair. would eventually become a resident in New York's Harlem neighborhood in the 1920s, making a name for herself by the number’s game, short temper and passion for fashion. She lived in a prosperous community in Harlem known as Sugar Hill, one of Harlem's elite neighborhoods. On a normal day she could run into her neighbor W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall or various other prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance.

Stephanie was a leader in the “numbers game”, an illegal betting game that had taken Harlem by storm. Every day, Harlemites would place bets on what the numbers of the next day's lottery draw would be. These numbers were important to circulating the Harlem dollar in the community. The lottery would make some lucky Harlem Resident a nice sum of money, but win, loss or draw St. Clair always was a winner.

St. Clair was always dressed exquisite and made sure to make her presence known, she was known to raise her voice and unleash profanity or threats to get the attention of the toughest gangster. She would also be ahead of the game by using the power of media using ads in local black papers (Amsterdam News) to amplify the message of keeping money in the community or any other topics she felt was important.

St. Clair developed and banked the lucrative numbers rackets in Harlem, in partnership with her enforcer, another well-known African-American mobster, Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson. Around 1930, mobsters started moving in on the numbers rackets as prohibition dissolved. Dutch Schultz, a Mob boss, was her top nemesis. There were over 30 people killed due to gang violence that centered on control of the popular local lottery.

By the mid-1930s, St. Clair, who slowly lost control of the numbers game, realized Schultz and the Mafia led by Charlie “Lucky” Luciano had too much influence and money to resist and she peacefully bowed out. Following her separation from the numbers game assassins shot Schultz and killed three of his associates on October 25, 1935.

St. Clair’s smart investments left her in a comfortable financial status. During this time she would marry a man named Sufi Abdul Hamid. Hamid claimed to be a descendent of Egyptian pharaohs. Hamid’s was also known for flamboyant style and community presence. In January 1938, Hamid was shot on his way to see a lawyer, and St. Clair was charged with the crime. During court proceedings it was revealed Hamid’s name was actually Eugene Brown, that he was from Philadelphia and that he had a mistress. St. Clair was convicted of assault and she was sentenced to state prison.

When she left prison, she continued to work for civil and economic rights for African-Americans, and by all accounts avoided all criminal activity until her death in 1969.

- QUEENIE