![]() Clair established her Harlem numbers business in the early or mid-1920s. In 1912, she boarded a ship bound for New York City. History doesn’t record what she did while in Canada, but Harris hypothesizes that she may have been employed as a domestic worker. Clair set out for Terrebonne, Quebec, just outside of Montreal. On July 22, 1911, at the age of either 13 or 23, St. The two often contradict each other, as she carefully built up her own mythology. This anecdote epitomizes the difficulty of untangling the real St. Per Harris’ book, journalist Henry Lee Moon reported that she “vehemently” denied the latter possibility, steadfastly maintaining that she was, instead, of “French European” heritage. Clair may have been born in France or Martinique, an island south of Guadeloupe. Clair carefully built up her own mythology.Īlternatively, St. The two often contradict each other, as St. Clair from the one recorded in print is a difficult task. Clair was born in Grand-Terre, one of the five Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, between the mid-1880s and 1890s. Though her early life is shrouded in mystery, Harris suggests that St. Clair is because she made a point of telling us, taking out newspaper ads to address her foes, from unworthy suitors to the police. The only reason we know as much as we do about St. She had a mystical aura about her, and she wore exotic dresses with a colorful turban wrapped around her head.” Clair breezing through the lobby with her fur coat dramatically flowing behind her. Jones later recalled seeing “Madame Stephanie St. According to Edgecombe neighbor Katherine Butler Jones, the numbers queen was just as beguiling as some of the property’s more “respectable” tenants. Du Bois, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and painter Aaron Douglas. ![]() Clair lived in an apartment at 409 Edgecombe Avenue, a building home to some of Harlem’s most prestigious residents, including W.E.B. Clair was bold, audacious and flamboyant: “She was a risktaker, … willing to challenge normative ideas about gender and race.” ![]() If do not stop annoying me, I shall publish names and letters in the newspaper.”Īs historian LaShawn Harris, author of Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City's Underground Economy, puts it, St. Clair, am not looking for a husband or a sweetheart. When necessary, she told suitors to “please not annoy me. Clair was also outspoken, advocating in the press for immigrant rights and against police brutality. Clair, the “queen of numbers.” A gangster, civil rights advocate, fashionista and businesswoman, she took on one of the biggest crime bosses of the era-and lived to tell about it.įar from hiding in a criminal underworld, St. On the eve of the Great Depression, with Prohibition in full swing, everyone in Harlem knew the name Stephanie St. ![]()
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