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Original Gangsters with Sean Bean (2025) Season 1 Episode 3
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00:00New York in the early 20th century.
00:04Some of the most notorious criminals in history would start their lives of crime here.
00:10But few would rise from real poverty to power.
00:13To take on not only the law, but the entire system.
00:17And even the mafia itself.
00:21A ruthless racketeer.
00:24That's what we got here.
00:25And one of the most feared and respected bosses.
00:30Who became a legend.
00:37In her own lifetime.
00:41Who's next?
01:00In the early 1900s, crime was very much a white man's game.
01:14But in her own backyard, the Queen of Harlem didn't just play it.
01:20She ran it.
01:21Bombies.
01:23Beatings.
01:25Bodies in alleyways.
01:28Harlem bled.
01:29But she never bent.
01:32A warlord in pearls.
01:33To her allies, she was a legend.
01:38To her enemies, she was lethal.
01:43But why don't we know the name?
01:46Stephanie St. Clair.
01:47She is from Guadalupe, and she was born in the 1890s.
02:01She was the daughter of two working class people.
02:06Her dad died when she was about 10 or 11 years old.
02:09And she was raised by a single mother.
02:11She was relatively well-educated for a child growing up in the French West Indies.
02:17Her mother died at a young age, meaning that she was left alone at maybe age 12 or 13.
02:22Perhaps that's what pushed her to migrate to the Northern Hemisphere.
02:25So much of her early years are shrouded in mystery.
02:31One account has it that after her mother died of TB,
02:36she was forced to become a housegirl at a sugar plantation,
02:39but ran away at 13.
02:41After having killed the owner's son,
02:44who had repeatedly raped her over the years.
02:47Another account has it that she didn't kill him,
02:50but that while he was passed out drunk from rum,
02:53she emptied his pockets.
02:55Ran to the docks and jumped on the first portail,
02:58heading anywhere.
03:04Travelling virtually alone on a steamship for weeks
03:07left women, or really a young girl,
03:10open to theft, open to kidnapping, open to assault.
03:15It would not have been an easy journey,
03:17and without a clear sense of what's waiting on the other side.
03:19All we know for certain is that she arrived in North America in 1911.
03:29There were few opportunities for immigrants,
03:32much less for a young black woman
03:35from a non-English-speaking island in the Caribbean.
03:37She migrates to New York City to work as a domestic worker.
03:45You are hired to scrub and clean and feed a white family
03:49and also care for their children.
03:51No woman wants to do domestic work just because of, you know,
03:55how abusive that job can be.
03:58Stephanie Sinclair hardly talks about that early life,
04:01and I think that's purposeful.
04:06There are differing accounts of how she would make her first entry
04:10into New York's criminal underworld.
04:13One says that she starts dating a drug dealer
04:15and is working for him until he gets shot
04:18and she flees.
04:20A pimp who tries to force her into prostitution
04:23until Sinclair buries a fork in his eye.
04:28Allegedly.
04:32So this is the world where Stephanie Sinclair finds herself,
04:36and New York is going through one of the biggest changes
04:40it's ever known.
04:44A lot of southern African-Americans had made the decision
04:48to go to the north and specifically New York
04:50for better business opportunities,
04:53but also to escape the racist tensions
04:55of the Jim Crow era in the south.
04:57And for a lot of these black Americans,
04:59the journey north ended in Harlem.
05:01Harlem was called the Black Mecca.
05:09African-Americans from various parts of the world
05:12are bringing different customs, traditions,
05:16ways of knowing, ways of life,
05:18and bringing those things to Harlem.
05:22It's difficult to comprehend just how hard life
05:25would have been by then for Stephanie.
05:27We know all too well that black Americans
05:30were being subjected to appalling racial discrimination.
05:35Slavery is still in living memory.
05:37And sadly, attitudes hadn't changed all that much.
05:41It was almost impossible for black people
05:43to even open bank accounts or secure housing.
05:47And even when they were able to,
05:49the conditions were so poor,
05:52they were almost unlivable.
05:53We even have evidence of black folks
05:57in the early 1910s and early 1920s
05:59sleeping in shifts.
06:01So you might all be renting one bed in one room
06:05and, you know, somebody has it for the day shift,
06:08somebody has it for the night shift,
06:10and you switch back and forth.
06:12Everybody was piled on top of each other,
06:14which made for hard times,
06:16but also a lot of community building.
06:18And then also police brutality is rampant.
06:23You would be walking down the street
06:24and, you know, you'd be stopped by a police officer.
06:27They would start to search you if you talked back,
06:29if you happened to have anything on you.
06:31You were in for a beating and being put in jail.
06:37What's incredible
06:38is that even amongst all this hardship and discrimination,
06:42the brutal police repression and segregation,
06:45creativity found a way.
06:53When we think about Harlem during the 1920s,
06:56we tend to think about the Harlem Renaissance,
06:58that cultural expression
06:59where artists, musicians, actors, painters, sculptors
07:03are using art as a vehicle
07:06to really challenge race, gender and class discrimination,
07:10racist caricatures, racist silent movies
07:12like the film Birth of a Nation,
07:14which comes out in the 1910s.
07:16So Harlem is this incredibly vibrant cultural epicentre,
07:20a real phenomenon.
07:22It's around this time that Stephanie St. Clair
07:25made her mind up that she wants more.
07:32But those economic hardships weren't going anywhere.
07:36How is someone like Stephanie supposed to change her lot?
07:40For Harlem's poorer population,
07:43there was really only one option to strike it rich.
07:49The numbers game was like a people's lottery
07:52in a time when black people weren't even allowed bank accounts.
07:55What you want?
07:56Give me 500, will you?
07:57Want 500?
07:57309.
07:58309.
07:5978.
08:0078.
08:01591.
08:01Players would write their lucky three-digit numbers on slips of paper.
08:06And runners would run these slips in the bets
08:09between the gamblers and the bankers.
08:11The winning numbers were chosen from the last three digits
08:15of the daily trading totals of the New York Stock Exchange,
08:18which, crucially, made the game impossible to tamper with or fix.
08:23So the New York Clearinghouse is a financial institution
08:27and it handles millions of dollars every day.
08:30And then they publish in the paper, like yesterday we handled,
08:33you know, $57,982,431.91.
08:38And so the 431, those three digits before the decimal point,
08:42that becomes the New York number.
08:44Hitting the number is huge for anybody.
08:47That gives you the opportunity to take care of oneself and one's family.
08:51So if you hit the number, you know, your rent is paid for four months.
08:56The numbers game was something that everyone could get involved with.
09:00And Stephanie St. Clair wanted a piece of that pie.
09:04But the question is,
09:06how is it going to change Stephanie St. Clair, the house cleaner,
09:11into Stephanie St. Clair, the mob boss?
09:13Prohibition in 1920 would change the course of the nation's history.
09:22The entire country would ban the sale and production of alcohol
09:28to try and curb his social ills.
09:31Prohibition lends itself to the creation of Harlem
09:36as a sort of vice district.
09:37The police funnel the illegal alcohol activity
09:41into this particular neighborhood.
09:44The police are willing to allow illegal activity to go on,
09:48provided that they themselves get a cut.
09:52An association emerges between Harlem and vice activity.
09:57You know, that's part of why you would see something as common
10:00as people taking bets on the street corner.
10:02The prohibition racket was controlled by the mafia,
10:05which meant dealing with legendary mob bosses
10:08like Lucky Luciano,
10:10Joe Maciara,
10:12and Arnold Rothstein,
10:14the gangster who allegedly rigged the 1919 World Series.
10:19The black community was cut out of prohibition entirely,
10:23so they created something of their own.
10:28So who was Stephanie St. Clair?
10:31Well, at this point in time, she wasn't really anybody.
10:35But all that was about to change.
10:41The numbers game is an illegal game anyone could play,
10:46which could change your life.
10:49A people's lottery of sorts.
10:51Pretty much anybody can start taking bets
10:54as long as they've got either the cash to pay out winners
10:57or the moxie to chance their arm
10:59until they build up a big enough pot.
11:03With no start-up costs and few overheads,
11:07it's easy to see why it's so appealing to the city's working classes.
11:11Eventually, these central figures come to be called bankers, right?
11:14People with a large enough pool of money
11:16that they could pay out multiple wins on a given bet.
11:19It was a way for black people to enter the banking system,
11:23a way for money to be generated.
11:25The numbers game was something that everyone could get involved with,
11:29everyone could play,
11:30and there was the potential of winning.
11:33And Stephanie St. Clair wanted a piece of that pie.
11:36In 1922, Stephanie St. Clair's fortunes took a dramatic turn.
11:45She managed to accumulate $30,000,
11:48a huge sum for the era,
11:50and more than enough to launch her own numbers operation.
11:55Ted Poston, a journalist at the time, did offer one theory.
11:59Stephanie herself was a numbers player.
12:02According to Poston's research,
12:04St. Clair hit the number
12:06and used her winnings to set up her own policy shop.
12:11It's very unique for a woman and a black person
12:15to run an illegal operation
12:17because African-Americans at this particular time
12:21are supposed to be confined to certain stations in life.
12:25She's really stepping out of the boundaries of race.
12:30She's entering into a male-dominated space.
12:32No-one is doubting that men historically outnumber women
12:38in nearly all types of crime.
12:40So people like Stephanie St. Clair, who climbed the ranks, were rare.
12:43In the numbers racket, the collection and enforcement were essential and dangerous jobs.
12:52Runners carried large amounts of cash through city streets,
12:56making them prime targets for thieves.
12:58If you were a collector,
13:00this meant knocking on doors where you might not walk away.
13:04There were no courts to turn to,
13:07only street justice.
13:08One of the things that's really interesting
13:13is that it seems like she used other people,
13:16particularly men, to keep her hands clean.
13:19She is metting out punishment.
13:21She's putting down and making sure that you don't defy her,
13:24but she's not doing these acts themselves.
13:26One of the most significant people that would work with Stephanie
13:30was Bumpy Johnson.
13:34He would later become the godfather of Harlem,
13:37but right now, he's the toughest enforcer.
13:41We can see here from civil records
13:43that he was born Ellsworth Johnson
13:46in Charleston, South Carolina,
13:49in October 1905.
13:52He'd eventually become Stephanie's right-hand man.
13:59You know not to cross her
14:01because you hear stories of what happens
14:03when you take her money.
14:04You hear stories of what happens
14:06when you try to scam her
14:08or fudge the numbers
14:09or not pay up when it's your turn.
14:13And that includes her using her right-hand man.
14:15Bumpy, in order to be an enforcer.
14:18Men didn't work for women.
14:20But here you had Stephanie Sinclair
14:22who had men working for her,
14:25men answering to her.
14:27Bumpy apparently said
14:28Stephanie was one woman he would never cross.
14:36Bumpy met out punishment in the form of beatings,
14:39taking people's lives.
14:41Without Stephanie Sinclair,
14:43there'd be no Bumpy Johnson.
14:45And without Bumpy Johnson,
14:47you wouldn't get legendary gangster Frank Lucas.
14:51And so,
14:52the Queen of Harlem
14:53gave birth
14:55to these demigods,
14:58these secular gangster gods.
15:03By 1928,
15:05Stephanie's reputation as a woman not to be crossed
15:08had spread through New York.
15:10Stephanie Sinclair during the late 1920s
15:16lived at 409 Edgecombe,
15:18which is in Sugar Hill in Harlem.
15:20And this is a neighborhood and a building
15:23where some of the most prominent Black elite folks lived.
15:27On the one hand,
15:29she is respected in her community,
15:31but a lot of people don't think that she's a respectable person
15:35because she was engaged in illicit trade.
15:38She certainly was a lady in a lot of ways,
15:42but she also was a criminal.
15:46Stephanie decided to get her own voice out there,
15:49to let the people of Harlem know who she really was
15:53and for whom she was fighting.
15:56Black newspapers become this sort of venue for Black people
16:02to learn about various things happening across the country.
16:06And in New York City,
16:08the New York Amsterdam News
16:09is the paper that Sinclair turns to
16:12to kind of air out her grievances about,
16:15you know, the state of Harlem,
16:16the state of Black New Yorkers,
16:17and also about the police.
16:20And her ad is particularly stunning
16:21because on this ad,
16:23Stephanie Sinclair always has an image of herself.
16:28Although very few photos of her survive,
16:31we can see the image was incredibly important to Stephanie.
16:34She never allowed herself to be photographed
16:38without her hair, her makeup, her clothes,
16:41all perfectly styled.
16:44Stephanie Sinclair loves the media.
16:47She's a really flamboyant person.
16:49It's not a mystery who she is.
16:51She wants people to know.
16:53She is dressed to the nines.
16:55Her hair is done.
16:56She always has a fur coat.
16:58She has on, you know, jewelry.
17:00I mean, she's just looking like, you know, a 10.
17:02She liked to be seen and seen looking well.
17:07She commanded space.
17:09She was a queen.
17:11When she stepped out in Harlem,
17:13every picture that you see of her in the newspaper,
17:16she's dressed from head to toe.
17:17She's got fine jewels on.
17:19She's walking slowly to make sure
17:21that you know who she is.
17:23It certainly is something that all people who do what she does
17:28typically engage in, which is this costume.
17:31And I think that shows status and power.
17:33And she needed to show that to people to maintain her position.
17:37She wanted to wear nice clothes and she enjoyed that.
17:40It also is very much a part, though, of that uniform,
17:42that sense of power and control.
17:45I'm in control.
17:46Take me seriously.
17:48I'm playing the same game that you guys are playing.
17:51So whereas it was mostly men playing that game,
17:54I think her costume was needed to help her have that armor
17:58to step into the arena and do what they were doing
18:00and kind of match them as well.
18:02A few miles north of Harlem,
18:04in the back streets of the Bronx,
18:06an ambitious young gangster was casting an envious eye
18:09towards Stephanie's grip on the Harlem numbers racket.
18:13And his name was Dutch Schultz.
18:18He was described by Edgar Hoover as public enemy number one.
18:22The mob couldn't even handle him.
18:24He was a loose cannon.
18:26In time, their rivalry would become one of the fiercest
18:28and bloodiest in New York gangland history.
18:32Stephanie wasn't just fighting for herself.
18:35She was fighting for her whole community.
18:38She was a boss who made a fortune but gave back,
18:41gave back to the community.
18:43If someone needed a hospital bill paid, she would do it.
18:46She wanted to keep the money within Harlem.
18:51The public viewed Stephanie St. Clair as a very shrewd woman
18:53who had a very nasty temper, but she also had a nurturing side.
18:57She was a huge champion of her community,
19:00which is shown by the number of people that she employed into the business.
19:05She was an activist for Black Advancement.
19:07She educated her community about their rights.
19:10She would speak out about discrimination.
19:11And the fact that she was so loyal to her community meant that this was returned to her.
19:17So it was a sound strategy that paid dividends to her business.
19:21And I think that's largely the reason that she was able to run such a successful operation
19:27that was at the height able to bring in $200,000 a year.
19:31$200,000 a year in 1928 would be worth over $3 million today.
19:40As the money starts rolling in, so too do the corrupt cops who all want to cut.
19:46At this particular time, the NYPD is very corrupt.
19:51You have officers who are involved in various vice brackets, the numbers rackets,
19:58the paid enforcement rackets.
20:01Police officers are involved in the sex trade.
20:05Some officers are known to assault, harass physically, sexually Black New Yorkers,
20:12especially, you know, African-American women.
20:15Anyone who wanted to be a criminal and had any sentence
20:19was going to pay off the police so that they could go about their business
20:23in a relatively inconspicuous fashion.
20:26St. Clair did this.
20:28However, she also spoke out about the police
20:31and especially how much they were harassing her employees and herself.
20:36And therefore, her actions were very closely followed all throughout her reign.
20:40In 1929, she was arrested for possessing policy slips.
20:45Which is considered to be a very trumped-up charge.
20:50She does not hide that she is a banker.
20:53She actually testifies that she's a banker.
20:56And she only does that because she wants to expose the police.
20:59So, as early as 1929, you know, she's talking about,
21:03I'm a banker, but at the same time, I was not supposed to be arrested
21:06because I paid for protection from the NYPD.
21:10She wrote these open letters saying, I've paid my ICE.
21:15You know, now ICE was the kickbacks which you gave to the police.
21:19So, for her, it's exposing herself,
21:22but she's definitely going to put it on the record that the NYPD is corrupt.
21:26In 1930, police corruption in New York was so widespread
21:35that President Roosevelt ordered Judge Samuel Seabree to lead a public investigation.
21:41During that investigation, I proved that corruption existed
21:48in many of the departments of the city government.
21:52And all of those departments were hunting home with political appointees.
21:59Stephanie Sinclair go before the Seabree Commission
22:03to testify about ICE rackets
22:05and the participation of the NYPD in them.
22:11Due to her testimony, over a dozen police officers,
22:15including a lieutenant, were then suspended from the NYPD.
22:18She was definitely fearless.
22:22She stood up to corrupt NYPD blue.
22:24I mean, for anyone, let alone a black woman at that time,
22:29to literally be pointing out corrupt police officers in court,
22:33naming and shaming them.
22:35In a lifetime, a bold moose.
22:39That one might have been the boldest.
22:45Although Sinclair managed to get the NYPD off her back,
22:49she still had the problem of an ambitious
22:51and aggressive gang from the Bronx
22:54trying to muscle in on her turf.
22:59Prohibition is repealed,
23:02leaving bootleggers like Dutch Schultz
23:05looking for new ways to make money.
23:07And what could be more appealing
23:09than muscling in on the lucrative numbers game?
23:13Dutch Schultz especially was known for making bold moves
23:17to take over the bootlegging game in the Bronx,
23:20and he was using those same tactics
23:22to take over numbers game operations in Harlem.
23:25But Stephanie Sinclair said no,
23:27and Harlem was about to become a war zone.
23:38New York, 1933.
23:42Prohibition is repealed and America celebrates.
23:45But as the liquor flowed,
23:48so too did the blood.
23:50Among the many gangsters Stephanie had to deal with,
23:53none were more vicious, more ruthless
23:55than one of the city's biggest bootleggers.
23:58Notorious for torture and murder.
24:00Dutch Schultz.
24:07Dutch Schultz was not known for his gentle ways with the opposition.
24:10He and his mob kept New York City in a constant state
24:13of violence and bloody gunplay.
24:15This was the face that struck terror in rival mobsters.
24:18His real name is Arthur Fleggenheimer.
24:21He was born in the Bronx.
24:23He eventually becomes a bootlegger for several crime families in New York City.
24:28He was so successful at that that he's known as the beer baron of the Bronx.
24:33And he also made money through paid protection.
24:37Dutch Schultz was a notorious, ruthless mobster who made his fortune during Prohibition.
24:48Dutch Schultz had made a name for himself by removing obstacles in his way.
24:54And those obstacles were people.
24:57He would torture people.
24:59He'd have people killed.
25:02Dutch Schultz is estimated that at the height of his success
25:05was bringing in about $20 million a year,
25:08which for that time is a huge, huge sum of money.
25:12So when Prohibition ended,
25:15obviously gangsters then were looking at other ventures
25:18to make up for these lost profits, which were ginormous.
25:24During the early 1930s, we see many white racketeers
25:28whose funds have dried up because Prohibition is over
25:31look for new avenues of income.
25:34And the numbers game, at one point it was seen as
25:38the welfare client's Wall Street.
25:40It was called, you know, the N-word pool.
25:43You know, this is a game that only blacks play.
25:46This is a game that's not profitable.
25:48But once many of the black racketeers started getting arrested
25:51and some of their revenue was printed in newspapers,
25:55white racketeers like Schultz wanted to get into that game.
25:59And many of them started to force people out of the business.
26:03Dutch Schultz had power and he had the support of people like Jimmy Hines,
26:09who was a Tammany Hall political machine, democratic boss.
26:12He was a huge, huge threat, and that's why so many people,
26:16rather than try and fight him, just succumb to his wishes,
26:20whether that be paying him a portion of their business
26:23or handing it over entirely.
26:26And Stephanie Sinclair was one of his targets.
26:30And she was like, no.
26:31And with that, all hell broke loose.
26:38Harlem was a war.
26:41You can go anywhere in America,
26:43but you're not coming into Harlem.
26:45Harlem is ours.
26:46Harlem is for black people.
26:48Stephanie said she'd resist any attempt by Schultz
26:51to breach her borders.
26:53And she did.
26:55Schultz sent in his soldiers,
26:57armed enforcers who used intimidation,
27:02beatings,
27:04bombings and murder
27:07to muscle in on St. Clair's territory.
27:11But as well as fighting back with her own network of gangsters,
27:15she was well ahead of her time
27:16when it came to the weaponization of public opinion.
27:21The beef between those two,
27:23really on St. Clair's part, is a public beef.
27:27Both of them make this about saying things about one another
27:31in the newspaper.
27:33Stephanie Sinclair is quick to go to the New York Amsterdam News,
27:37which is a black newspaper,
27:39and talk about Schultz and other white racketeers
27:42coming into Harlem and taking over this game.
27:45And of course, wanting to project a sense of toughness
27:48and wanting to really keep what she's grown.
27:52She's like, no.
27:53Stephanie said,
27:55I'm not afraid of Dutch Schultz or any other man living.
27:58He'll never touch me.
27:59I am sane and smart and fearless.
28:02She went to the newspapers and wrote articles
28:05calling for anyone who is buying a numbers ticket to buy black.
28:10This, in many ways, is a form of economic nationalism.
28:15If whites are treating you in particular types of ways,
28:18you should not do business with these people.
28:21So challenging Schultz in the newspaper
28:24is just one of a variety of ways
28:26that St. Clair speaks out against white encroachment.
28:30The rivalry between Dutch and Stephanie would escalate.
28:38Dutch once sent an underling to intimidate her.
28:41St. Clair pushed him in the closet
28:43and told her bodyguards to, quote,
28:46get rid of him.
28:47She dramatically walks through Harlem
28:52and goes to white businesses
28:54which serve as numbers drops for white racketeers.
28:59And she goes into those businesses.
29:01She trashes the place
29:02and essentially tells the white business owners
29:05to get out of Harlem.
29:07You know, this is a black game.
29:08This really causes a spectacle in some of these stores.
29:12Legend has it that at some point
29:14she even had to go into hiding
29:15because he had put a hit out on her
29:18and she retaliated in kind
29:20both in print and on the streets.
29:23She refused to let this man walk over her
29:27and take her business that she'd worked so hard for
29:30and that was so successful for her.
29:33She waged an all-out war.
29:36It's estimated that it's responsible for about 40 murders.
29:41She fed information to the police
29:43about Schultz's operations.
29:46And due to this,
29:47they were able to infiltrate his house
29:49and seize $12 million of his money
29:52and arrest a lot of his employees.
29:56She went toe-to-toe
29:57and I know so much of the violence is vilified.
30:01I think we've got to remember
30:03that we're talking gangsters.
30:05You couldn't go to small claims court.
30:08This wasn't a civil matter.
30:09People had to work out their grievances
30:12on the street and we're talking millions of dollars.
30:15I think it's great that she stood up to him.
30:19But Dutch Schultz was soon to get his comeuppance
30:22for defying the commission,
30:24the governing body of organized crime in New York.
30:27Dutch Schultz was being prosecuted for tax evasion
30:31by district attorney Thomas Dune.
30:33Bracketeers succeed only so long
30:36as they can prey upon the fear or weakness
30:39of disorganized or timid victims.
30:44He'd asked the organized crime commission
30:46if he could kill Dewey.
30:48They unanimously denied the request
30:50for fear of bringing the full weight of the government
30:53down on all of them.
30:55But Schultz put the hit out on Dewey regardless.
31:01Here was the loose cannon of Dutch
31:03doing what he wanted again.
31:06So the commission hired Murder, Inc.
31:09to take Schultz out.
31:15Murder, Inc. or the syndicate
31:18was an organized crime group
31:19that acted as the enforcement arm of the commission.
31:22Led by Charles Lucky Luciano,
31:26Mayer Lansky,
31:28and Bugsy Siegel.
31:30Incredibly, they were responsible
31:32for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings
31:36in that period alone.
31:42It's 10.15pm on October the 23rd, 1935.
31:48Dutch Schultz is in the restroom
31:49of one of his favorite restaurants.
31:52The Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey.
31:56Two gunmen,
31:57Charles Workman and Mendy Weiss,
32:00burst through the door and opened fire.
32:04The commission took no chances.
32:07They needed Dutch dead.
32:09The gunmen intentionally used rusty bullets
32:13to increase the chances of sepsis
32:15and infection
32:16in case the gunshots themselves
32:19were not fatal.
32:20Wanting to have the final word,
32:23Stephanie immediately sent a telegram
32:26to her enemy on his deathbed.
32:28Signed,
32:30Madam Queen of Policy.
32:32It read,
32:33As you saw,
32:35so shall you reap.
32:37This is Galatians 6-7.
32:41All the evil that you have sowed
32:43and placed upon myself and others,
32:46you're reaping that now.
32:48I think when Stephanie sent the telegram,
32:51it shows really that she's going back to her true values.
32:58This is someone who is always fighting for the underdog.
33:01This is someone who has that strong moral sense
33:04of what is right and what is wrong.
33:05And she's just reminding that person of his wrongdoing
33:10as her final word to him
33:12so that he is reminded
33:13of really where he's going to go
33:17after the moment he takes his last breath.
33:21As you sow,
33:23so shall you reap.
33:25It's poetic justice.
33:29And with no more battles left to fight,
33:33Stephanie St. Clair got out of the game,
33:36passing her empire on to her trusted enforcer,
33:39Bumpy Johnson.
33:42And you might think her story ended there,
33:44but she would soon cross paths
33:46with a man known on the streets as Black Hitler.
33:51And this time,
33:52things would get personal.
33:55It's 1935
33:58and Stephanie St. Clair's main rival,
34:01Dutch Schultz,
34:02is six feet under.
34:04With the turf wars over,
34:05Stephanie would step back from the numbers game,
34:08ready to enjoy her fortune
34:09and live a quiet life.
34:12But her peace wouldn't last long.
34:15She would fall straight into the arms of Sufi Abdul Hamid,
34:19a man the press would later call Black Hitler.
34:22Sufi Hamid,
34:24whose real name is Eugene Brown.
34:27And Eugene Brown was a Chicago political activist
34:30who migrates to New York City.
34:33He was a religious leader and a union leader,
34:36and he had a preference for Nazi-style military dress.
34:40And also, he was very anti-Semitic,
34:43and thus he earned the nickname Black Hitler.
34:48Like St. Clair,
34:50he was trying to advocate for Black advancement.
34:55So he organized a lot of boycotts of white shops,
34:58a lot of white Jewish shops.
35:00He was a very flamboyant,
35:02a very controversial figure.
35:03His persona is very large and in life.
35:06This is someone who preaches
35:07from the corner of 135th Street and Lenox Avenue
35:11with black riding boots,
35:14you know, colorful pants,
35:16a white shirt,
35:18a really long cape,
35:20a really big turban,
35:21and he has a really massive beard.
35:23This would be a person
35:24that you would stop and actually listen to, right?
35:27Just not based upon necessarily what he's saying,
35:30but just based upon the way he looks.
35:32They were a power couple.
35:34You know, they were a power couple
35:36stomping around Harlem,
35:37and I think this was really good
35:39for her mythology and her brand.
35:42Here was someone else who was speaking out
35:45as vociferously as she did.
35:47But it seems like Sufi was only with her for the money.
35:51And whilst he may have been flamboyant
35:53and eye-catching,
35:55his anti-Semitism was toxic
35:58and stirred up ill-feeling intentions
36:00with nearby Jewish districts.
36:04The marriage lasts for about two to three years.
36:08There's an alleged affair
36:09between Stephanie Sinclair's friend,
36:12Dorothy Matthews,
36:13who is a famous Harlem occult leader.
36:16So Stephanie Sinclair wants to confront him.
36:23She waited for him
36:24when he was going to meet his lawyer one day.
36:27He stood in the hallway
36:28and shot him three times.
36:32The first shot,
36:33he's hit in the mouth,
36:35cracks a tooth.
36:36The second shot goes through his coat jacket,
36:39and the third shot goes over his head.
36:42In a subsequent trial,
36:44Sinclair said that he had been
36:46treating her very poorly
36:47and that he'd been having the affair,
36:50but that also her handling the gun,
36:52which she claimed was his,
36:53was only meant to scare him
36:55rather than actually meant to shoot him.
36:57She's arrested,
36:58she's indicted,
36:59and she's prosecuted,
37:01and she's given two to ten years
37:02at the Westfield State Farm
37:05in upstate New York.
37:08As Stephanie starts her second stint behind bars,
37:12Hamid, who survived the shooting,
37:15tries to make a comeback,
37:17but news of the affair did major damage
37:20to his messianic image.
37:23What a character Hamid was.
37:25He ends up trying to prove to his followers
37:27that he's not leading a life of excess,
37:30and the way he chooses to do that
37:32is to publicly fill up the fuel
37:35for his private airplane himself.
37:38He ends up crashing the plane and dying
37:40because he hadn't put enough fuel in it.
37:46After Stephanie Sinclair comes out of prison
37:49in the early 1940s,
37:52we really don't know a lot about her.
37:57The New York Amsterdam News suggests
38:00that she lived in seclusion
38:01and traveled to the Caribbean.
38:05There's another ad that suggests
38:07Stephanie Sinclair was hospitalized
38:09at a mental institution
38:11in central Islip, Long Island.
38:14She also appears in the late 60s
38:20when she would have been about 77
38:21in a court document
38:24where she accuses a van driver
38:27of knocking her down.
38:29She got $2,000,
38:30which is equivalent to about $15,000 today.
38:34And I think why I like that story
38:37is because she had also bought a house,
38:40but in terms of the records,
38:43she wasn't really able to keep up payments.
38:47And so it seems like even at 77,
38:52she'd do what it takes to get that money.
38:55When the money is issued to her lawyer,
38:57all of these creditors come after the money.
39:00This is a person who has a rags-to-riches story
39:04and seemingly towards the end of her life
39:07has a riches-to-rag story.
39:11Stephanie Sinclair
39:12is an extraordinary story.
39:16From being a maid
39:18to a crime boss
39:20to an activist.
39:22Stephanie was someone
39:23who really fought
39:24to see change actually happen.
39:27And not only that,
39:28but she fought for that
39:30at a time
39:31where she would have been
39:33bearing the brunt
39:34of a lot of force
39:36against her
39:37to stop her from doing that.
39:38So it wasn't something
39:39that she was able to speak
39:40really openly and freely about.
39:41She was never one to resist
39:44writing an editorial
39:45and placing it in a magazine
39:46or in a local newspaper
39:48where she decried
39:50the police ignoring
39:51the civil rights
39:52and the legal rights
39:53of black people in the community.
39:55She talked openly and often
39:56about the ways
39:57in which black women
39:58endured assault
39:59at the hands of the police.
40:00She rallied black people.
40:02They were talking about
40:03what it meant to be black in America
40:06at a time when black people
40:07were finding their voice.
40:09And not only did she find her voice,
40:11she lived her voice.
40:13What started as a desire
40:16to grow her own empire
40:18became a way to give back.
40:21A genuine desire
40:22to see black Americans
40:24lifted up.
40:25Now that to me,
40:26that says something
40:27fascinating about human nature,
40:30about solidarity.
40:33You practice it, you know,
40:35no matter what the reason,
40:37it becomes who you are.
40:40I think one of the reasons
40:41that Stephanie St. Clair
40:43is not remembered
40:44and ensconced in history
40:46the way others are
40:47is first and foremost
40:48because she was a woman.
40:50We often don't preserve
40:51the histories
40:52and contributions
40:53of women in general
40:54at the same rate
40:55that we do with men
40:57and certainly not black women.
40:58folks like Stephanie St. Clair
41:02have been marginalized
41:04or excluded from history books
41:07because there's a tendency
41:08to kind of spotlight
41:09and become really preoccupied
41:11with those who were doing
41:13the striving,
41:14like those who were
41:15what we would call
41:16a credit to the race.
41:18But even within that,
41:19more and more scholars
41:20are looking at the complex lives
41:22of working class,
41:23ordinary black people.
41:24I think there's a tendency now
41:27to explore those people
41:29who've lived more complicated
41:31and more layered lives.
41:36Perhaps the legacy
41:37that Stephanie leaves behind
41:39is that despite all
41:41of the discrimination,
41:44there's something unyielding
41:46in the human spirit,
41:49a refusal to accept
41:50the hand you've been dealt.
41:53I think part of her legacy
41:54is persevering over
41:56really tough obstacles,
41:59especially when
42:00you're kind of born
42:01into a world
42:02where you're not supposed
42:04to thrive,
42:06let alone survive.
42:08Why isn't Stephanie St. Clair
42:10better known today?
42:12Would she be
42:13more widely remembered
42:15if she'd been white
42:17or a man?
42:19Or is it because
42:20she knew when to quit?
42:21We'll never know for sure,
42:26but perhaps
42:26we should let her
42:29have the last word.
42:31Many persons
42:32have said that
42:33they're afraid for me
42:34and that I should be careful.
42:36I'm not going to be
42:37any more careful
42:38than I have been.
42:39Please have no fear for me.
42:41I have no fear
42:42of anybody.
42:44I'm going to continue
42:45to fight
42:45until the members
42:46of the race
42:47get their just
42:48and legal rights.
42:50She was the OG,
42:52the original gangster.
42:55Black queen.
42:58Badass.
42:59They've got so much
43:24things to say
43:25right now.
43:27They've got so
43:29much things
43:29to say.
43:33They've got so
43:34much things
43:35to say right now.
43:38They've got so
43:39much things
43:40to say.
43:44I'll never forget
43:45to know
43:46how they crucified
43:50Jesus Christ.
43:54I'll never forget
43:55I'll never forget
43:56I'll never forget
43:56I'll never forget
43:57I'll never forget
43:57I'll never forget
43:58I'll never forget
43:59I'll never forget
43:59I'll never forget
43:59I'll never forget
44:00I'll never forget
44:00I'll never forget
44:01I'll never forget
44:01I'll never forget
44:02I'll never forget
44:02I'll never forget
44:03I'll never forget
44:03I'll never forget
44:04I'll never forget
44:05I'll never forget
44:05I'll never forget
44:06I'll never forget
44:07I'll never forget
44:08I'll never forget
44:08I'll never forget
44:09I'll never forget
44:10I'll never forget
44:11I'll never forget
44:12I'll never forget
44:13I'll never forget
44:14I'll never forget
44:15I'll never forget
44:16I'll never forget
44:17I'll never forget
44:18I'll never forget
44:19I'll never forget
44:20I'll never forget
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