Stephanie St. Clair

Stephanie Saint-Clair (December 24, 1886 – December 1969) was a mob boss 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.

Stephanie Saint-Clair was born of mixed French and African descent on Martinique, of an unknown father. Her mother, Félicienne worked hard to send her daughter to school. When Stéphanie turned 15, her mother became very ill and she had to leave school. She was employed as a maid by a rich family, where she was repeatedly raped by the son. She managed to save some money and, after the death of her mother, finally left Martinique for France in 1912. Even though she could read and write, a rare quality for a black female at the time, she could not find decent employment. She emigrated to the United States via Marseille, aged around 23. She used the long voyage and the subsequent quarantine to learn English. In Harlem, she fell in love with a small-time crook, Duke, who soon tried to prostitute her. Enraged, she planted a fork in his eye and promptly left New York on a bus. The following night, the bus was stopped by the Ku Klux Klan. Several black passengers were hanged or burnt alive in front of her, and she was repeatedly raped. Following this incident, 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.

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."

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