- 3 months ago
From Al Capone, to the real Peaky Blinders, from The Krays twins to the Queen of Harlem, each hour-long episode of Original Gangsters will see the legendary actor Sean Bean take a deep dive through a rogues gallery of some of the most notorious criminals in history to separate the fact from the fiction, as we find out what they mean to us today and just why they were the original gangsters.
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00:00New York in the early 20th century.
00:09Some of the most notorious criminals in history would start their lives of crime here.
00:14But few would rise from real poverty to power.
00:18To take on not only the law, but the entire system.
00:22And even the mafia itself.
00:26A ruthless racketeer.
00:28This is why we got here.
00:30And one of the most feared and respected bosses.
00:35Who became a legend.
00:43In her own lifetime.
00:47Who's next?
00:58In the early 1900s, crime was very much a white man's game.
01:19But in her own backyard, the Queen of Harlem didn't just play it.
01:25She ran it.
01:26Bombies.
01:28Beatings.
01:30Bodies in alleyways.
01:31Harlem bled.
01:34But she never bent.
01:37A warlord in pearls.
01:39To her allies, she was a legend.
01:42To her enemies, she was lethal.
01:45Well, why don't we know the name?
01:51Stephanie St. Clair.
01:52She is from Guadalupe, and she was born in the 1890s.
02:06She was the daughter of two working class people.
02:11Her dad died when she was about 10 or 11 years old.
02:14And she was raised by a single mother.
02:16She was relatively well-educated for a child growing up in the French West Indies.
02:21Her mother died at a young age, meaning that she was left alone at maybe age 12 or 13.
02:27Perhaps that's what pushed her to migrate to the Northern Hemisphere.
02:32So much of her early years are shrouded in mystery.
02:36One account has it that after her mother died of TB,
02:40she was forced to become a housegirl at a sugar plantation,
02:44but ran away at 13.
02:46After having killed the owner's son,
02:49who had repeatedly raped her over the years.
02:52Another account has it that she didn't kill him,
02:55but that while he was passed out drunk from rum,
02:58she emptied his pockets,
03:00ran to the docks and jumped on the first boat out,
03:03heading anywhere.
03:04Travelling virtually alone on a steamship for weeks left women or really a young girl open to theft,
03:17open to kidnapping,
03:18open to assault.
03:20It would not have been an easy journey,
03:21and without a clear sense of what's waiting on the other side.
03:24All we know for certain is that she arrived in North America in 1911.
03:33There were few opportunities for immigrants,
03:36much less for a young black woman from a non-English-speaking island in the Caribbean.
03:42She migrates to New York City to work as a domestic worker.
03:48You are hired to scrub and clean and feed a white family and also care for their children.
03:56No woman wants to do domestic work just because of, you know,
04:00how abusive that job can be.
04:03Stephanie Sinclair hardly talks about that early life,
04:06and I think that's purposeful.
04:11There are differing accounts of how she would make her first entry into New York's criminal underworld.
04:17One says that she starts dating a drug dealer,
04:21and he's working for him until he gets shot,
04:23and she flees.
04:24Another that she shacks up with a man named Duke,
04:29a pimp who tries to force her into prostitution,
04:32until Sinclair buries a fork in his eye.
04:37Allegedly.
04:41So this is the world where Stephanie Sinclair finds herself,
04:46and New York is going through one of the biggest changes it's ever known.
04:49A lot of Southern African Americans had made the decision to go to the North,
04:58and specifically New York, for better business opportunities,
05:01but also to escape the racist tensions of the Jim Crow era in the South.
05:06And for a lot of these Black Americans, the journey in North ended in Harlem.
05:14Harlem was called the Black Mecca.
05:16It's difficult to comprehend just how hard life would have been by then for Stephanie.
05:36We know all too well that Black Americans were being subjected to appalling racial discrimination.
05:43Slavery is still in living memory.
05:46And sadly, attitudes hadn't changed all that much.
05:49It was almost impossible for Black people to even open bank accounts or secure housing.
05:56And even when they were able to, the conditions were so poor, they were almost unlivable.
06:03We even have evidence of Black folks in the early 1910s and early 1920s sleeping in shifts.
06:09So, you might all be renting one bed in one room, and, you know, somebody has it for the day shift,
06:17somebody has it for the night shift, and you switch back and forth.
06:20Everybody was piled on top of each other, which made for hard times, but also a lot of community building.
06:27And then also, police brutality is rampant.
06:31You would be walking down the street, and, you know, you'd be stopped by a police officer.
06:35They would start to search you if you talked back, if you happened to have anything on you.
06:40You were in for a beating and being put in jail.
06:45What's incredible is that even amongst all this hardship and discrimination,
06:51the brutal police repression and segregation, creativity found a way.
06:56When we think about Harlem during the 1920s, we tend to think about the Harlem Renaissance,
07:06that cultural expression where artists, musicians, actors, painters, sculptors
07:12are using art as a vehicle to really challenge race, gender, and class discrimination,
07:19racist caricatures, racist silent movies like the film Birth of a Nation, which comes out in the 1910s.
07:24So Harlem is this incredibly vibrant cultural epicenter, a real phenomenon.
07:31It's around this time that Stephanie St. Clair made her mind up that she wants more.
07:36But those economic hardships weren't going anywhere.
07:45How is someone like Stephanie supposed to change her lot?
07:49For Harlem's poorer population, there was really only one option to strike it rich.
07:55The numbers game was like a people's lottery in a time when BlackBee weren't even allowed bank accounts.
08:04What you want?
08:04Give me 500, will you?
08:05Want 500?
08:06309.
08:07309.
08:08788.
08:09788.
08:09591.
08:11Players would write their lucky three-digit numbers on slips of paper.
08:15And runners would run these slips in the bets between the gamblers and the bankers.
08:20The winning numbers were chosen from the last three digits of the daily trading totals of
08:25the New York Stock Exchange, which, crucially, made the game impossible to tamper with or fix.
08:33So the New York Clearinghouse is a financial institution and it handles millions of dollars
08:37every day.
08:38And then they publish in the paper, like yesterday we handled, you know, $57,982,431.91.
08:47And so the 4-3-1, those three digits before the decimal point, that becomes the New York
08:53number.
08:53Hitting the number is huge for anybody.
08:56That gives you the opportunity to take care of oneself and one's family.
09:00So if you hit the number, you know, your rent is paid for four months.
09:04The numbers game was something that everyone could get involved with, and Stephanie Sinclair
09:10wanted a piece of that pie.
09:13But the question is, how is it going to change Stephanie Sinclair, the house cleaner, into
09:20Stephanie Sinclair, the mob boss?
09:29Prohibition in 1920 would change the course of the nation's history.
09:33The entire country would ban the sale and production of alcohol to try and curb his social ills.
09:42Prohibition lends itself to the creation of Harlem as a sort of vice district.
09:49The police funnel the illegal alcohol activity into this particular neighborhood.
09:55The police are willing to allow illegal activity to go on, provided that they themselves get a
10:01cut.
10:01An association emerges between Harlem and vice activity.
10:07You know, that's part of why you would see something as common as people taking bets on
10:12the street corner.
10:13The prohibition racket was controlled by the mafia, which meant dealing with legendary mob bosses
10:18like Lucky Luciano, Joe Maciara, and Arnold Rothstein.
10:25The gangster who allegedly rigged the 1919 World Series.
10:29The black community was cut out of prohibition entirely, so they created something of their own.
10:39So who was Stephanie Sinclair?
10:42Well, at this point in time, she wasn't really anybody.
10:45The numbers game is an illegal game anyone could play, which could change your life.
10:59A people's lottery of sorts.
11:01Pretty much anybody can start taking bets, as long as they've got either the cash to pay
11:07out winners, or the moxie to chance their arm, until they build up a big enough pot.
11:12With no startup costs and few overheads, it's easier to see why it's so appealing to the city's
11:20working classes.
11:22Eventually, these central figures come to be called bankers, right?
11:25People with a large enough pool of money that they could pay out multiple wins on a given bet.
11:30It was a way for black people to enter the banking system, a way for money to be generated.
11:36The numbers game was something that everyone could get involved with, everyone could play,
11:41and there was the potential of winning.
11:43And Stephanie Sinclair wanted a piece of that pie.
11:50In 1922, Stephanie Sinclair's fortunes took a dramatic turn.
11:55She managed to accumulate $30,000, a huge sum for the era, and more than enough to launch
12:02her own numbers operation.
12:06Ted Poston, a journalist at the time, did offer one theory.
12:10Stephanie herself was a numbers player.
12:13According to Poston's research, Sinclair hit the number and used her winnings to set up
12:19her own policy shop.
12:20It's very unique for a woman and a black person to run an illegal operation, because African-Americans
12:30at this particular time are supposed to be confined to certain stations in life.
12:36She's really stepping out of the boundaries of race.
12:40She's entering into a male-dominated space.
12:43No one is doubting that men historically outnumber women in nearly all types of crime.
12:51So people like Stephanie Sinclair, who climbed the ranks, were rare.
12:57In the numbers racket, the collection and enforcement were essential in dangerous jobs.
13:03Runners carried large amounts of cash through city streets, making them prime targets for
13:08thieves, if you were a collector, this meant knocking on doors where you might not walk away.
13:15There were no courts to turn to, only street justice.
13:21One of the things that's really interesting is that it seems like she used other people,
13:27particularly men, to keep her hands clean.
13:30She is metting out punishment.
13:32She's putting down and making sure that you don't defy her, but she's not doing these acts themselves.
13:38One of the most significant people that would work with Stephanie was Bumpy Johnson.
13:44He would later become the godfather of Harlem, but right now, he's the toughest enforcer.
13:51We can see here from civil records that he was born Ellsworth Johnson in Charleston, South Carolina,
14:00in October 1905.
14:03He'd eventually become Stephanie's right-hand man.
14:08You know not to cross her, because you hear stories of what happens when you take her money.
14:15You hear stories of what happens when you try to scam her or fudge the numbers or not pay up when it's your turn.
14:23And that includes her using her right-hand man, Bumpy, in order to be an enforcer.
14:28Men didn't work for women, but here you had Stephanie Sinclair, who had men working for her, men answering to her.
14:38Bumpy apparently said Stephanie was one woman he would never cross.
14:42Bumpy met out punishment in the form of beatings, taking people's lives.
14:52Without Stephanie Sinclair, there'd be no Bumpy Johnson.
14:56And without Bumpy Johnson, you wouldn't get legendary gangster Frank Lucas.
15:01And so the Queen of Harlem gave birth to these demigods, these secular gangster gods.
15:13By 1928, Stephanie's reputation as a woman not to be crossed had spread through New York.
15:21Stephanie Sinclair, during the late 1920s, lived at 409 Edgecombe, which is in Sugar Hill in Harlem.
15:31And this is a neighborhood and a building where some of the most prominent Black elite folks lived.
15:39On the one hand, she is respected in her community, but a lot of people don't think that she's a respectable person
15:46because she was engaged in illicit trade.
15:49She certainly was a lady in a lot of ways, but she also was a criminal.
15:56Stephanie decided to get her own voice out there, to let the people of Harlem know who she really was
16:03and for whom she was fighting.
16:06Black newspapers become this sort of venue for Black people to learn about various things happening
16:15across the country.
16:17And in New York City, the New York Amsterdam News, is the paper that Sinclair turns to
16:23to kind of air out her grievances about, you know, the state of Harlem,
16:27the state of Black New Yorkers, and also about the police.
16:31And her ad is particularly stunning because on this ad,
16:34Stephanie Sinclair always has an image of herself.
16:36Although very few photos of her survive, we can see the image was incredibly important to Stephanie.
16:46She never allowed herself to be photographed without her hair, her makeup, her clothes,
16:52all perfectly styled.
16:55Stephanie Sinclair loves the media.
16:57She's a really flamboyant person.
17:00It's not a mystery who she is.
17:02She wants people to know she is dressed to the nines.
17:05Her hair is done.
17:07She always has a fur coat.
17:09She has, you know, jewelry.
17:11I mean, she's just looking like, you know, a 10.
17:14She liked to be seen and seen looking well.
17:18She commanded space.
17:20She was a queen.
17:22When she stepped out in Harlem, every picture that you see of her in the newspaper,
17:27she's dressed from head to toe.
17:28She's got fine jewels on.
17:30She's walking slowly to make sure that you know who she is.
17:35It certainly is something that all people who do what she does typically engage in,
17:41which is this costume.
17:42And I think that shows status and power.
17:44And she needed to show that to people to maintain her position.
17:48She wanted to wear nice clothes and she enjoyed that.
17:51It also is very much a part, though, of that uniform, that sense of power and control.
17:56I'm in control, take me seriously.
17:59I'm playing the same game that you guys are playing.
18:01So whereas it was mostly men playing that game,
18:05I think her costume was needed to help her have that armor to step into the arena
18:10and do what they were doing and kind of match them as well.
18:13A few miles north of Harlem, in the back streets of the Bronx,
18:17an ambitious young gangster was casting an envious eye
18:20towards Stephanie's grip on the Harlem numbers racket.
18:24And his name was Dutch Schultz.
18:28He was described by Edgar Hoover as public enemy number one.
18:33The mob couldn't even handle him.
18:35He was a loose cannon.
18:36In time, their rivalry would become one of the fiercest and bloodiest
18:40in New York gangland history.
18:43Stephanie wasn't just fighting for herself.
18:45She was fighting for her whole community.
18:49She was a boss who made a fortune but gave back, gave back to the community.
18:54If someone needed a hospital bill paid, she would do it.
18:57She wanted to keep the money within Harlem.
19:00The public viewed Stephanie St. Clair as a very shrewd woman who had a very nasty temper.
19:06But she also had a nurturing side.
19:08She was a huge champion of her community,
19:11which is shown by the number of people that she employed into the business.
19:15She was an activist for Black Advancement.
19:18She educated her community about their rights.
19:20She would speak out about discrimination.
19:23And the fact that she was so loyal to her community meant that this was returned to her.
19:28So it was a sound strategy that paid dividends to her business.
19:32And I think that's largely the reason that she was able to run such a successful operation
19:38that was at the height able to bring in $200,000 a year.
19:42$200,000 a year in 1928 would be worth over $3 million today.
19:51As the money starts rolling in, so too do the corrupt cops who all want a cut.
19:58At this particular time, the NYPD is very corrupt.
20:03You have officers who are involved in various vice rackets, the numbers rackets,
20:09the paid enforcement rackets.
20:12Police officers are involved in the sex trade.
20:16Some officers are known to assault, harass physically, sexually Black New Yorkers,
20:23especially African-American women.
20:25Anyone who wanted to be a criminal and had any sentence was going to pay off the police
20:32so that they could go about their business in a relatively inconspicuous fashion.
20:37St. Clair did this.
20:38However, she also spoke out about the police and especially how much they were harassing
20:44her employees and herself.
20:46And therefore, her actions were very closely followed all throughout her reign.
20:51In 1929, she was arrested for possessing policy slips, which is considered to be a very trumped-up charge.
20:59She does not hide that she is a banker.
21:04She actually testifies that she's a banker.
21:06And she only does that because she wants to expose the police.
21:10So as early as 1929, you know, she's talking about,
21:14I'm a banker, but at the same time, I was not supposed to be arrested
21:17because I paid for protection from the NYPD.
21:21She wrote these open letters saying, I've paid my ICE.
21:26You know, now ICE was the kickbacks which you gave to the police.
21:30So for her, it's exposing herself, but she's definitely going to put it on the record
21:35that the NYPD is corrupt.
21:41In 1930, police corruption in New York was so widespread
21:46that President Roosevelt ordered Judge Samuel Seabree to lead a public investigation.
21:55During that investigation, I proved that corruption existed
21:59in many of the departments of the city government.
22:03And all of those departments were hunting homes with political appointees.
22:10Stephanie Sinclair got before the Seabree Commission
22:13to testify about vice-rackets
22:16and the participation of the NYPD in them.
22:22Due to her testimony, over a dozen police officers,
22:26including a lieutenant, were then suspended from the NYPD.
22:29She was definitely fearless.
22:32She stood up to corrupt NYPD Blue.
22:35I mean, for anyone, let alone a black woman at that time,
22:39to literally be pointing out corrupt police officers in court,
22:44naming and shaming them.
22:46In a lifetime, a bold moose.
22:50That one might have been the boldest.
22:56Although Sinclair had managed to get the NYPD off her back,
22:59she still had the problem of an ambitious
23:02and aggressive gang from the Bronx
23:04trying to muscle in on her turf.
23:10Prohibition is repealed.
23:13Leaving boatleggers like Dutch Schultz
23:16looking for new ways to make money.
23:18And what could be more appealing
23:20than muscling in
23:21on the lucrative numbers game?
23:24Dutch Schultz especially was known for
23:27making bold moves to take over
23:29the bootlegging game in the Bronx.
23:31And he was using those same tactics
23:33to take over numbers game operations in Harlem.
23:36But Stephanie Sinclair said no.
23:39And Harlem
23:40was about to become a war zone.
23:50New York, 1933.
23:55Prohibition is repealed
23:57and America celebrates.
23:58But as the liquor flowed,
24:00so too did the blood.
24:03Among the many gangsters Stephanie had to deal with,
24:06none were more vicious,
24:07more ruthless
24:08than one of the city's biggest bootleggers.
24:11Notorious for torture and murder.
24:15Dutch Schultz.
24:19Dutch Schultz was not known
24:21for his gentle ways with the opposition.
24:23He and his mob kept New York City
24:25in a constant state of violence
24:26and bloody gunplay.
24:28This was the face that struck terror
24:29in rival mobsters.
24:32His real name is Arthur Flegenheimer.
24:35He was born in the Bronx.
24:37He eventually becomes a bootlegger
24:39for several crime families
24:40in New York City.
24:42He was so successful at that
24:44that he's known as
24:44the beer baron of the Bronx.
24:47And he also made money
24:49through paid protection.
24:49Dutch Schultz was a notorious,
24:55ruthless mobster
24:57who made his fortune
24:59during Prohibition.
25:02Schultz had made a name for himself
25:03by removing obstacles in his way.
25:07And those obstacles were people.
25:10He would torture people.
25:12He'd have people killed.
25:14Dutch Schultz is estimated
25:16that at the height of his success
25:18was bringing in
25:19about $20 million a year,
25:21which for that time
25:22is a huge, huge sum of money.
25:25So when Prohibition ended,
25:28obviously gangsters then
25:29were looking at other ventures
25:31to make up for these lost profits,
25:33which were ginormous.
25:37During the early 1930s,
25:39we see many white racketeers
25:41whose funds have dried up
25:43because Prohibition is over
25:44looked for new avenues of income.
25:47And the numbers game,
25:49at one point,
25:49it was seen as
25:50the welfare client's Wall Street.
25:53It was called, you know,
25:54the N-word pool.
25:56You know, this is a game
25:57that only blacks play.
25:59This is a game
25:59that's not profitable.
26:01But once many of the black racketeers
26:03started getting arrested
26:04and some of their revenue
26:06was printed in newspapers,
26:08white racketeers like Schultz
26:10wanted to get into that game.
26:11And many of them started
26:13to force people
26:14out of the business.
26:16Dutch Schultz had power
26:18and he had the support
26:19of people like Jimmy Hines,
26:22who was a Tammany Hall
26:23political machine,
26:24democratic boss.
26:25He was a huge, huge threat
26:27and that's why so many people,
26:29rather than try and fight him,
26:31just succumb to his wishes,
26:33whether that be paying him
26:35a portion of their business
26:36or handing it over entirely.
26:39And Stephanie Sinclair
26:40was one of his targets.
26:42And she was like, no.
26:47And with that,
26:49all hell broke loose.
26:51Harlem was a war.
26:54You can go anywhere in America,
26:56but you're not coming into Harlem.
26:58Harlem is ours.
26:59Harlem is for black people.
27:01Stephanie said she'd resist
27:02any attempt by Schultz
27:04to breach her borders.
27:06And she did.
27:08Schultz sent in his soldiers,
27:10armed enforcers who used intimidation,
27:15beatings,
27:17bombings and murder
27:19to muscle in on Sinclair's territory.
27:22But as well as fighting back
27:25with her own network of gangsters,
27:28she was well ahead of her time
27:29when it came to the weaponization
27:31of public opinion.
27:33The beef between those two,
27:36really on Sinclair's part,
27:38is a public beef.
27:40Both of them make this about
27:42saying things about one another
27:44in the newspaper.
27:46Stephanie Sinclair is quick to go to
27:48the New York Amsterdam News,
27:50which is a black newspaper,
27:51and talk about Schultz
27:53and other white racketeers
27:55coming into Harlem
27:56and taking over this game.
27:58And of course,
27:59wanting to project
27:59a sense of toughness
28:01and wanting to really keep
28:02what she's grown.
28:05She's like, no.
28:07Stephanie said,
28:08I'm not afraid of Dutch Schultz
28:09or any other man living.
28:11He'll never touch me.
28:12I am sane and smart and fearless.
28:15She went to the newspapers
28:17and wrote articles
28:18calling for anyone
28:20who is buying a numbers ticket
28:22to buy black.
28:24This, in many ways,
28:26is a form of economic nationalism.
28:28If whites are treating you
28:30in particular types of ways,
28:31you should not do business
28:32with these people.
28:34So challenging Schultz
28:36in the newspaper
28:37is just one of a variety
28:39of ways that Sinclair
28:40speaks out against
28:42white encroachment.
28:46The rivalry between Dutch
28:47and Stephanie would escalate.
28:51Dutch once sent an underling
28:53to intimidate her.
28:54Sinclair pushed him
28:55in the closet
28:56and told her bodyguards
28:58to, quote,
28:59get rid of him.
29:00She dramatically walks through Harlem
29:05and goes to white businesses
29:07which serve as numbers drops
29:10for white racketeers.
29:12And she goes into those businesses,
29:14she trashes the place
29:15and essentially tells
29:17the white business owners
29:18to get out of Harlem.
29:20You know, this is a black game.
29:21This really causes a spectacle
29:23in some of these stores.
29:24Legend has it that at some point
29:27she even had to go into hiding
29:28because he had put a hit out
29:30on her
29:31and she retaliated in kind
29:33both in print
29:34and on the streets.
29:36She refused to let this man
29:39walk over her
29:40and take her business
29:41that she'd worked so hard for
29:43and that was so successful for her.
29:46She waged an all-out war.
29:48It was estimated that
29:50it's responsible
29:51for about 40 murders.
29:54She fed information to the police
29:56about Schultz's operations
29:58and due to this
29:59they were able to
30:01infiltrate his house
30:02and seize $12 million
30:04of his money
30:05and arrest
30:06a lot of his employees.
30:08She went toe-to-toe
30:10and I know
30:10so much of the violence
30:12is vilified.
30:14I think we've got to remember
30:16that we're talking gangsters.
30:18You couldn't go to
30:19small claims court.
30:20This wasn't a civil matter.
30:22People had to
30:24work out their grievances
30:25on the street
30:26and we're talking
30:27millions of dollars.
30:29I think it's great
30:30that she stood up to him.
30:32But Dutch Schultz
30:33was soon to get his comeuppance
30:35for defying the commission,
30:36the governing body
30:37of organized crime
30:38in New York.
30:40Dutch Schultz
30:41was being prosecuted
30:42for tax evasion
30:44by district attorney
30:45Thomas Dewey.
30:47Bracketeers succeed
30:48only so long
30:49as they can prey
30:50upon the fear
30:51or weakness
30:52of disorganized
30:54or timid victims.
30:57He'd asked
30:57the organized crime commission
30:58if he could kill Dewey.
31:01They unanimously
31:02denied the request
31:03for fear
31:04of bringing
31:05the full weight
31:05of the government
31:06down on all of them.
31:08But Schultz
31:10put the hit out
31:11on Dewey
31:11regardless.
31:14Here was
31:14the loose cannon
31:15of Dutch
31:16doing what he wanted
31:18again.
31:19So the commission hired
31:21Murder Inc.
31:22to take Schultz out.
31:28Murder Inc.
31:29or the syndicate
31:30was an organized crime group
31:32that acted as the enforcement arm
31:34of the commission
31:35led by Charles Lucky Luciano,
31:39Meyer Lansky
31:40and Bugsy Siegel.
31:43Incredibly,
31:44they were responsible
31:45for between
31:46400
31:47and 1,000
31:48contract killings
31:49in that period alone.
31:51It's 10.15 p.m.
31:57on October the 23rd,
31:581935.
32:01Dutch Schultz
32:01is in the restroom
32:02of one of his favorite restaurants,
32:05the Palace Chop House
32:06in Newark,
32:07New Jersey.
32:09Two gunmen,
32:10Charles Workman
32:11and Mendy Weiss,
32:13burst through the door
32:14and opened fire.
32:17The commission
32:18took no chances.
32:20They needed Dutch
32:21dead.
32:22The gunmen
32:23intentionally used
32:24rusty bullets
32:26to increase
32:26the chances
32:27of sepsis
32:28and infection
32:29in case
32:30the gunshots
32:31themselves
32:31were not fatal.
32:33Wanting to have
32:34the final word,
32:36Stephanie
32:37immediately
32:37sent a telegram
32:39to her enemy
32:40on his deathbed.
32:41Signed,
32:43Madam Queen of Policy.
32:45It read,
32:46As you saw,
32:48so shall you
32:49reap.
32:51This is Galatians 6-7.
32:54All the evil
32:54that you have
32:55sowed
32:56and placed upon
32:57myself
32:58and others,
32:59you're reaping
33:00that now.
33:00I think when Stephanie
33:03sent the telegram,
33:05it shows
33:06really that she's
33:09going back
33:09to her true values.
33:11This is someone
33:12who is always
33:12fighting for the underdog.
33:14This is someone
33:14who has that strong
33:16moral sense
33:17of what is right
33:17and what is wrong.
33:19And she's just
33:20reminding that person
33:21of his wrongdoing
33:22as her final word
33:24to him
33:24so that he is reminded
33:26of really
33:29where he's going
33:29to go after
33:30the moment
33:31he takes
33:31his last breath.
33:34As you sow,
33:36so shall you reap.
33:39It's poetic justice.
33:40And with no more
33:43battles left to fight,
33:46Stephanie St. Clair
33:47got out of the game,
33:49passing her empire
33:49on to her trusted
33:51enforcer,
33:52Bumpy Johnson.
33:55And you might think
33:56her story ended there,
33:57but she would soon
33:58cross paths
33:59with a man
34:00known on the streets
34:02as Black Hitler.
34:03And this time,
34:05things would get personal.
34:06It's 1935
34:13and Stephanie St. Clair's
34:15main rival,
34:16Dutch Schultz,
34:17six feet under.
34:18With the turf wars over,
34:20Stephanie would step back
34:21from the numbers game,
34:23ready to enjoy her fortune
34:24and live a quiet life.
34:27But her peace
34:28wouldn't last long.
34:30She would fall straight
34:31into the arms
34:32of Sufi Abdul Hamid,
34:34a man the press
34:34would later call
34:35Black Hitler.
34:38Sufi Hamid,
34:39whose real name
34:40is Eugene Brown.
34:41And Eugene Brown
34:42was a Chicago
34:43political activist
34:45who migrates
34:46to New York City.
34:48He was a religious leader
34:50and a union leader.
34:51And he had a preference
34:52for Nazi-style
34:54military dress.
34:55And also,
34:56he was very anti-Semitic.
34:58And thus,
34:59he earned the nickname
35:00Black Hitler.
35:03Like St. Clair,
35:04he was trying to advocate
35:07for Black advancement.
35:10So he organized
35:11a lot of boycotts
35:12of white shops,
35:13a lot of white Jewish shops.
35:15He was a very flamboyant,
35:17a very controversial figure.
35:19His persona
35:19is very larger than life.
35:21This is someone
35:22who preaches
35:22from the corner
35:24of 135th Street
35:25and Lenox Avenue
35:26with black riding boots,
35:29you know,
35:29colorful pants,
35:31a white shirt,
35:33a really long cape,
35:35a really big turban.
35:36And he has
35:36a really massive beard.
35:38This would be a person
35:39that you would stop
35:40and actually listen to,
35:42right?
35:42Just not based upon
35:44necessarily what he's saying,
35:45but just based upon
35:46the way he looks.
35:47They were a power couple.
35:49You know,
35:50they were a power couple
35:51stomping around Harlem.
35:52And I think this was
35:53really good
35:54for her mythology
35:56and her brand.
35:57Here was someone else
35:58who was speaking out
36:00as vociferously
36:01as she did.
36:02But it seems like
36:03Sufi was only with her
36:04for the money.
36:06And whilst he may have
36:07been flamboyant
36:08and eye-catching,
36:10his anti-Semitism
36:11was toxic
36:12and stirred up
36:14ill-feeling intentions
36:15with nearby Jewish districts.
36:19The marriage lasts
36:20for about
36:21two to three years.
36:22There is an alleged affair
36:24between Stephanie Sinclair's
36:26friend,
36:27Dorothy Matthews,
36:28who is a famous
36:29Harlem occult leader.
36:32So Stephanie Sinclair
36:34wants to confront him.
36:37She waited for him
36:39when he was going
36:40to meet his lawyer one day.
36:42Stood in the hallway
36:43and shot him
36:44three times.
36:46The first shot,
36:48he's hit in the mouth,
36:50cracked the tooth.
36:50The second shot
36:52goes through his coat jacket
36:54and the third shot
36:56goes over his head.
36:57In the subsequent trial,
36:59St. Clair said that he had been
37:01treating her very poorly
37:02and that he'd been having
37:03the affair.
37:05But that also,
37:06her handling the gun,
37:07which she claimed was his,
37:08was only meant to scare him
37:10rather than actually
37:11meant to shoot him.
37:11She's arrested,
37:13she's indicted,
37:14and she's prosecuted,
37:16and she's given
37:16two to ten years
37:17at the Westfield State Farm
37:20in upstate New York.
37:22As Stephanie starts
37:24her second stint behind bars,
37:27Hamid,
37:28who survived the shooting,
37:30tries to make a comeback.
37:32But news of the affair
37:33did major damage
37:35to his messianic image.
37:38What a character Hamid was.
37:40He ends up trying to prove
37:41to his followers
37:42that he's not leading
37:43a life of excess.
37:44And the way he chooses
37:46to do that
37:47is to publicly
37:48fill up the fuel
37:50for his private airplane himself.
37:53He ends up crashing the plane
37:54and dying
37:55because he hadn't put
37:57enough fuel in it.
38:01After Stephanie St. Clair
38:03comes out of prison
38:04in the early 1940s,
38:07we really don't know
38:09a lot about her.
38:11The New York Amsterdam News
38:14suggests that she lived
38:15in seclusion
38:16and traveled
38:18to the Caribbean.
38:20There's another ad
38:21that suggests
38:22Stephanie St. Clair
38:22was hospitalized
38:23at a mental institution
38:26in central Islip,
38:29Long Island.
38:30She also appears
38:32in the late 60s
38:34when she would have been
38:35about 77
38:36in a court document
38:39where she accuses
38:41a van driver
38:42of knocking her down.
38:44She got $2,000
38:45which is equivalent
38:46to about $15,000
38:48today.
38:49And I think
38:50why I like that story
38:52is because
38:53she had also
38:54bought a house
38:55but in terms
38:57of the records,
38:59she wasn't really able
39:00to keep up payments.
39:02And so it seems like
39:03even at 77,
39:07she'd do what it takes
39:08to get that money.
39:09when the money
39:10is issued
39:11to her lawyer,
39:12all of these creditors
39:13come after the money.
39:15This is a person
39:16who has a
39:18rags-to-riches story
39:19and seemingly
39:21towards the end
39:21of her life
39:22has a riches-to-rags story.
39:26Stephanie St. Clair
39:27is an extraordinary story.
39:31From being a maid
39:33to a crime boss
39:35to an activist,
39:37Stephanie was someone
39:38who really fought
39:39to see change
39:40actually happen.
39:42And not only that,
39:43but she fought
39:44for that
39:45at a time
39:46where she would have been
39:47bearing the brunt
39:49of a lot of force
39:51against her
39:51to stop her
39:52from doing that.
39:53So it wasn't something
39:54that she was able
39:54to speak really openly
39:55and freely about.
39:56She was never one
39:58to resist
39:58writing an editorial
40:00and placing it
40:01in a magazine
40:01or in the local newspaper
40:03where she decried
40:05the police ignoring
40:06the civil rights
40:07and the legal rights
40:08of black people
40:08in the community.
40:09She talked openly
40:11and often
40:11about the ways
40:12in which black women
40:13endured assault
40:14at the hands
40:14of the police.
40:15She rallied black people.
40:17They were talking
40:18about what it meant
40:19to be black in America
40:21at a time
40:22when black people
40:22were finding their voice.
40:24And not only did she
40:25find her voice,
40:26she lived her voice.
40:28What started as
40:29a desire
40:31to grow her own empire
40:33became a way
40:34to give back.
40:36A genuine desire
40:37to see black Americans
40:39lifted up.
40:40Now that to me,
40:41that says something
40:42fascinating
40:43about human nature,
40:45about solidarity.
40:48You practice it,
40:49you know,
40:50no matter what the reason,
40:52it becomes who you are.
40:54I think one of the reasons
40:56that Stephanie St. Clair
40:57is not remembered
40:59and ensconced in history
41:01the way others are
41:02is first and foremost
41:03because she was a woman.
41:05We often don't preserve
41:06the histories
41:07and contributions
41:08of women in general
41:09at the same rate
41:10that we do with men
41:11and certainly not black women.
41:15Folks like Stephanie St. Clair
41:17have been marginalized
41:18or excluded
41:20from history books
41:22because there's a tendency
41:23to kind of spotlight
41:24and become really preoccupied
41:26with those who
41:27were doing the striving,
41:29like those who were
41:30what we would call
41:31a credit to the race.
41:33But even within that,
41:34more and more scholars
41:35are looking at the complex lives
41:37of working class,
41:38ordinary black people.
41:39I think there's a tendency
41:42now to explore
41:43those people
41:44who lived more complicated
41:46and more layered lives.
41:51Perhaps the legacy
41:52that Stephanie leaves behind
41:54is that
41:55despite all of the discrimination,
41:59there's something unyielding
42:01in the human spirit,
42:03a refusal to accept
42:05the hand you've been dealt.
42:07I think part of her legacy
42:09is persevering
42:11over really tough obstacles,
42:14especially when
42:15you're kind of born
42:16into a world
42:17where you're not supposed
42:19to thrive,
42:21let alone survive.
42:22Why isn't Stephanie St. Clair
42:25better known today?
42:27Would she be
42:28more widely remembered
42:30if she'd been white
42:32or a man?
42:33Or is it because
42:35she knew when to quit?
42:39We'll never know for sure,
42:40but perhaps
42:41we should let her
42:44have the last word.
42:46Many persons
42:47have said that
42:47they're afraid for me
42:48and that I should be careful.
42:51I'm not going to be
42:52any more careful
42:53than I have been.
42:54Please have no fear for me.
42:56I have no fear of anybody.
42:58I'm going to continue to fight
43:00until the members of the race
43:02get their just
43:03and legal rights.
43:05She was the OG,
43:07the original gangster,
43:10black queen,
43:13badass.
43:14They've got so much
43:39things to say right now.
43:41They've got so much
43:44things to say.
43:48They've got so much
43:50things to say right now.
43:53They've got so much
43:55things to say.
43:59I'll never forget to know
44:01how they crucified
44:05just as Christ.
44:11We'll see you next time.
44:11We'll see you next time.
44:13Peace.
44:15Peace.
44:15Peace.
44:16Peace.
44:16Peace.
44:38Peace.
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