Madame Stephanie St. Clair: The Numbers Queen of Harlem

Arlenechang, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Not all female money makers operate(d) by the rules.

Madame Stephanie St. Clair was known as The Numbers Queen of Harlem. Starting in 1923, she built an illegal lottery “policy” into a cash machine that earned her $200,000 a year ($3.4 million in today’s dollars) per year.

But she was more than a numbers runner – she was an activist who fought back, risking her life in the process.

She took ads to inform the New York black community of their rights and encouraged them to refuse illegal searches. She helped found The French Legal Society, which provided immigrants with support.

St. Clair fought against police corruption targeting black-owned businesses, and led a campaign against white gangster Dutch Schultz’ incursions into Harlem.

Schultz, notoriously violent, put a hit out on St. Clair. Nevertheless, she persisted, organizing resistance among Black policy bankers and sometimes taking the law into her own hands.

She may not have been legal, but she was fearless.

When Schultz lay dying in a hospital from a gunshot wound, she sent him a telegram: “As ye sow, so shall you reap,” signed “Madame Queen.”

Though she later dropped out from the headlines St. Clair went on to continued business success, presumably through more legitimate means.

To learn more about Madame Stephanie St. Clair clink the link here.

¹𝖦𝖾𝗋𝗌𝗁𝗈𝗇, 𝖫𝗂𝗏𝗂𝖺. “𝖬𝖺𝖽𝖺𝗆𝖾 𝖲𝗍𝖾𝗉𝗁𝖺𝗇𝗂𝖾 𝖲𝗍. 𝖢𝗅𝖺𝗂𝗋: 𝖭𝗎𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝖰𝗎𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝗈𝖿 𝖧𝖺𝗋𝗅𝖾𝗆.” 𝘑𝘚𝘛𝘖𝘙 𝘋𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺, 𝟤𝟥 𝖥𝖾𝖻. 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟣.