All language subtitles for Original Gangsters s01e03 Stephanie St Clair.eng

Some of the most notorious criminals
in history

would start their lives of crime
here.

But few would rise from real poverty
to power,

to take on not only the law,
but the entire system

and even the Mafia itself.

A ruthless racketeer...

- So, what we got here?

BEAN: ..and one of the most feared
and respected bosses...

- (soundless)

BEAN: ..who became a legend...

..in her own lifetime.

- Who�s next?

BEAN: In the early 1900s, crime was
very much a white man's game.

But in her own backyard, the Queen
of Harlem didn�t just play it,

she ran it.

Bombings, beatings.

bodies in alleyways.

Harlem bled,
but she never bent.

A warlord in pearls.

To her allies, she was a legend.

To her enemies, she was lethal.

Why don't we know her name?

Stephanie St Clair.

- (soft folk song)

- She is from Guadeloupe,
and she was born in the 1890s.

She was the daughter of
two working-class people.

Her dad died when she was about
ten or 11 years old,

and she was raised by
a single mother.

- She was relatively well educated
for a child growing up

in the French West Indies.

Her mother died at a young age,

meaning that she was left alone
at maybe age 12 or 13.

Perhaps that's what pushed her to
migrate to the Northern Hemisphere.

BEAN: So much of her early years
are shrouded in mystery.

One account has it that
after her mother died of TB,

she was forced to become
a house girl at a sugar plantation,

but ran away at 13

after having killed the owner's son

who had repeatedly raped her
over the years.

Another account has it that
she didn't kill him,

but while he was passed out,
drunk from rum,

she emptied his pockets,
ran to the docks

and jumped on the first boat out,
heading anywhere.

- Travelling virtually alone
on a steamship for weeks

left women or really a young girl
open to theft,

open to kidnapping,
open to assault.

It would not have been
an easy journey,

and without a clear sense of
what's waiting on the other side.

- All we know for sure is that she
arrived in North America in 1911.

- (brash brass music)

BEAN: There were few opportunities
for immigrants,

much less for a young black woman

from a non-English-speaking island
in the Caribbean.

HARRIS: She migrates to New York
City to work as a domestic worker.

- You are hired to scrub and clean
and feed a white family

and also care for their children.

- No woman wants to do domestic work
just because of, you know,

how abusive that job can be.

Stephanie St Clair hardly talks
about that early life.

I think that's purposeful.

BEAN: There are differing accounts
of how she made her first entry

into New York�s criminal underworld.

One says that she starts dating
a drug dealer,

and is working for him,
until he gets shot, and she flees.

Another that she shacks up
with a man named Duke,

a pimp, who tries to force her
into prostitution,

until St Clair buries a fork
in his eye...

..allegedly.

- (cine film whirs)

BEAN: So this is the world where
Stephanie St Clair finds herself.

New York is going through one of
the biggest changes it�s ever known.

- A lot of
Southern African-Americans

had made the decision to go to
the north and specifically New York

for better business opportunities,

but also to escape the racist
tensions of the Jim Crow era

in the south.

For a lot of these Black Americans,
the journey north ended in Harlem.

HARRIS: Harlem was called
the Black Mecca.

African-Americans from various
parts of the world

are bringing different customs,
traditions,

ways of knowing, ways of life,

and bringing those things to Harlem.

- It's difficult to comprehend
just how hard life would have been

back then for Stephanie.

We know all too well that
Black Americans were being subjected

to appalling racial discrimination.

Slavery is still in living memory

and sadly attitudes hadn't changed
all that much.

It was almost impossible for Black
people to even open bank accounts

or secure housing.

And even when they were able to,
the conditions were so poor,

they were almost unliveable.

- We even have evidence of
Black folks in the early 1910s

and early 1920s sleeping in shifts.

So, you might all be renting one bed
in one room

and, you know, somebody has it
for the day shift,

somebody has it for the night shift

and you switch back and forth.

Everybody was piled on top of each
other, which made for hard times,

but also a lot of
community building.

- And then also police brutality
is rampant.

FARMER: You would be walking
down the street

and you'd be stopped by
a police officer.

They would start to search you
if you talked back,

if you happen to have anything
on you.

You were in for a beating
and being put in jail.

BEAN: What�s incredible is that
even amongst all this hardship

and discrimination, the brutal
police repression and segregation,

creativity found a way.

- (jazzy organ music)

HARRIS: When we think about Harlem
in the 1920s,

we tend to think about
the Harlem Renaissance,

that cultural expression
where artists, musicians,

actors, painters, sculptors
are using art as a vehicle

to really challenge race gender
and class discrimination,

racist caricatures,
racist silent movies

like the film Birth of a Nation,
which comes out in 1910s.

BEAN: So, Harlem is this incredibly
vibrant cultural epicentre,

a real phenomenon.

It's around this time that St Clair
made her mind up

that she wants more.

But those economic hardships
weren't going anywhere.

How is someone like Stephanie
supposed to change her lot?

- For Harlem�s poorer population,
there was only really one option

to strike it rich.

The Numbers Game was like
a people�s lottery

in a time when Black people weren�t
even allowed bank accounts.

- What you want?
- Give me 500, will you?

- You want 500?
- 309.

78. 591.

BEAN: Players would write their
lucky three-digit numbers

on slips of paper, and runners would
run these slips

and the bets between the gamblers
and the bankers.

The winning numbers were chosen
from the last three digits

of the daily trading totals
of the New York Stock Exchange,

which, crucially, made the game
impossible to tamper with or fix.

- So the New York Clearing House
is a financial institution

handling millions of dollars
every day.

Then they publish in the paper,

"Yesterday we handled
$57,982,431.91.�

And so the 431, those three digits
before the decimal point,

that becomes the New York number.

- Hitting the number is huge
for anybody

that gives you the opportunity
to take care of oneself

and one's family.

So if you hit the number,
your rent is paid for months.

- The numbers game was something
everyone could get involved with,

and Stephanie St Clair wanted
a piece of that pie.

BEAN: But the question is,

how was it going to change Stephanie
St Clair the house cleaner...

..into Stephanie St Clair
the mob boss?

- (jazzy piano)

BEAN: Prohibition in 1920

would change the course of
the nation's history.

- (blues singing)

BEAN: The entire country would ban
the sale and production of alcohol

to try and curb its social ills.

- Prohibition lends itself to
the creation of Harlem

as a sort of vice district.

The police funnel illegal alcohol
activity

into this particular neighbourhood.

The police are willing to allow
illegal activity to go on,

provided that they themselves
get a cut.

An association emerges
between Harlem and vice activity.

That�s part of why you would see
something as common as

people betting on street corners.

BEAN: The Prohibition racket was
controlled by the Mafia,

which meant dealing with
legendary mob bosses

like Lucky Luciano, Joe Masseria

and Arnold Rothstein,

the gangster who allegedly rigged
the 1919 World Series.

The Black community was cut out of
Prohibition entirely,

so they created something
of their own.

So who was Stephanie St Clair?

Well, at this point in time,
she wasn�t really anybody.

But all that was about to change.

The Numbers Game was an illegal game
anyone could play.

Which could change your life.

The People�s Lottery, of sorts.

Pretty much anybody can start taking
bets

as long as they've got either
the cash to pay out winners

or the moxie to chance their arm

until they build up
a big enough pot.

With no startup costs
and few overheads,

it's easier to see why it's so
appealing to the working classes.

- Eventually these central figures
come to be called bankers,

people with a large enough
pool of money

that they could pay out
multiple wins on a given bet.

- It was a way for Black people
to enter the banking system,

a way for money to be generated.

The Numbers Game was something that
everybody could get involved with,

everyone could play,

and there was the potential
of winning.

And Stephanie St Clair
wanted a piece of that pie.

In 1922, Stephanie St Clair�s
fortunes took a dramatic turn.

She managed to accumulate $30,000,

a huge sum for the era

and more than enough to launch
her own numbers operation.

- Ted Poston, a journalist
at the time, did offer one theory.

Stephanie herself was
a numbers player.

According to Poston's research,
St Clair hit the number

and used her winnings to set up
her own policy shop.

HARRIS: It's very unique
for a woman and a Black person

to run an illegal operation,

because African-Americans
at this particular time

are supposed to be confined
to certain stations in life.

She's really stepping out of
the boundaries of race.

She's entering a male-dominated
space.

- No-one is doubting that men,
historically outnumber women

in nearly all types of crime.

So people like Stephanie St Clair,
who climbed the ranks, were rare.

LLOYD: In the numbers racket,

the collection enforcement were
essential in dangerous jobs.

Runners carried large amounts of
cash through city streets,

making them prime targets
for thieves.

If you were a collector,
this meant knocking on doors,

where you might not walk away.

There were no courts to turn to,
only street justice.

- One of the things
that's really interesting

is that it seems like she used
other people, particularly men,

to keep her hands clean.

She is meting out punishment,
she's putting down and making sure

that you don't defy her,

but she's not doing these acts
themselves.

BEAN: One of the most significant
people who would work with Stephanie

was Bumpy Johnson.

He would later become
the godfather of Harlem,

but right now,
he's her toughest enforcer.

We can see here from civil records

that he was born Ellsworth Johnson
in Charleston, South Carolina

in October 1905.

He'd eventually become
Stephanie's right-hand man.

- (doorbell tinkles)

- You know not to cross her,

because you hear stories of what
happens when you take her money.

You hear stories of what happens

when you try to scam her
or fudge the numbers

or not pay up when it�s your turn.

And that includes her using
her right-hand man, Bumpy,

in order to be an enforcer.

- Men didn�t work for women, but
here you had Stephanie St Clair,

who had men working for her,
men answering to her.

Bumpy apparently said Stephanie was
one woman he would never cross.

FARMER: Bumpy met out punishment
in the form of beatings,

taking people�s lives.

LLOYD: Without Stephanie St Clair,
there'd be no Bumpy Johnson.

And without Bumpy Johnson,

you wouldn�t get legendary gangster
Frank Lucas.

And so the Queen of Harlem gave
birth to these demi-gods,

these secular gangster gods.

BEAN: By 1928,
Stephanie�s reputation

as a woman not to be crossed
had spread through New York.

HARRIS: Stephanie St Clair, in the
late 1920s, lived at 409 Edgecombe,

which is in Sugar Hill in Harlem.

And this is a neighbourhood
and a building

where some of the most prominent
Black elite folks lived.

- On the one hand,
she is respected in her community,

but a lot of people don't think that
she's a respectable person

because she was engaged in
illicit trade.

She certainly was a lady
in a lot of ways,

but she also was a criminal.

LLOYD: Stephanie decided to get
her own voice out there,

to let the people of Harlem know
who she really was

and for whom she was fighting.

- Black newspapers become
this sort of venue

for Black people to learn about
various things happening

across the country.

And in New York City,
The New York Amsterdam News

is a paper that St Clair turns

to kind of air out her grievances
about the state of Harlem,

the state of Black New Yorkers,
and also about the police.

And her ad is particularly stunning
because on this ad

Stephanie St Clair always has
an image of herself.

- Although very few photos of her
survive,

we can see that image was incredibly
important to Stephanie.

She never allowed herself
to be photographed

without her hair, her makeup,
her clothes all perfectly styled.

- Stephanie St Clair loves
the media.

She's a really flamboyant person.

It's not a mystery who she is.
She wants people to know.

She is dressed to the nines.
Her hair is done.

She always has a fur coat.

She has on, you know, jewellery.

She's just looking like,
you know, a ten.

- She liked to be seen.

And seen looking well.

She commanded space,
she was a queen.

- When she stepped out in Harlem,

every picture that you see of her
in the newspaper,

she�s dressed from head to toe.
She�s got fine jewels on,

she�s walking slowly to make sure
that you know who she is.

- It certainly is something that all
people who do what she does,

typically engage in,
which is this costume.

I think that shows status and power.

And she needed to show that
to people to maintain her position.

She wanted to wear nice clothes
and she enjoyed that.

It also is very much a part of
that uniform,

that sense of power and control.

"I�m in control, take me seriously.

I�m playing the same game
that you guys are playing."

So whereas it was mostly men playing
that game,

I think her costume was needed
to help her have that armour

to step into the arena and do
what they were doing

and kind of match them as well.

BEAN: A few miles north of Harlem,
in the backstreets of the Bronx,

an ambitious young gangster was
casting an envious eye

towards Stephanie�s grip
on the Harlem numbers racket.

And his name... was Dutch Schultz.

LLOYD: He was described by Edgar
Hoover as public enemy number one.

The Mob couldn�t even handle him.
He was a loose cannon.

BEAN: In time, their rivalry would
become one of the fiercest

and bloodiest
in New York gangland history.

LLOYD: Stephanie wasn�t just
fighting for herself.

She was fighting for her whole
community.

She was a boss who made a fortune,
but gave back.

Gave back to the community.

If someone needed a hospital bill
paid, she would do it.

She wanted to keep the money
within Harlem.

GREEN: The public viewed
Stephanie St Clair

as a very shrewd woman
who had a very nasty temper.

But she also had a nurturing side.

She was a huge champion of
her community,

which is shown by the number of
people she employed in the business.

She was an activist for
Black Advancement.

She educated her community
about their rights.

She would speak out about
discrimination.

The fact that she was so loyal to
her community

meant that this was returned to her.

So, it was a sound strategy that
paid dividends to her business.

I think that�s largely the reason

that she was able to run
such a successful operation

that was, at the height,
able to bring in $200,000 a year.

BEAN: $200,000 a year in 1928

would be worth over three million
today.

As the money starts rolling in,
so too do the corrupt cops,

who all want a cut.

- At this particular time,
the NYPD is very corrupt.

You have officers who are involved
in various vice rackets,

the numbers racket,
the paid enforcement racket.

Police officers are involved in
the sex trade.

Some officers are known to assault,
harass, physically, sexually,

Black New Yorkers especially,
you know, African-American women.

- Anyone who wanted to be a criminal
and had any sense,

was gonna pay off the police so that
they could go about their business

in a relatively inconspicuous
fashion.

St Clair did this. However,
she also spoke out about the police

and especially how much they were
harassing her employees and herself.

And so her actions were very closely
followed all throughout her reign.

In 1929, she was arrested for
possessing policy slips,

which is considered to be
a very trumped-up charge.

- She does not hide that
she is a banker.

She actually testifies that
she's a banker.

And she only does that because
she wants to expose the police.

So, as early as 1929,
she's talking about, �I'm a banker,

but at the same time I was not
supposed to be arrested

because I paid for protection
from the NYPD."

- She wrote these open letters,
saying, "I�ve paid my ice."

Ice was the kickbacks
which you gave to the police.

HARRIS:
So, for her, it's exposing herself,

but she's definitely gonna put it
on the record

that the NYPD is corrupt.

LLOYD: In 1930, police corruption
in New York was so widespread

that President Roosevelt ordered
Judge Samuel Seabury

to lead a public investigation.

- During that investigation,
I proved that corruption existed

in many of the departments of
the city government,

and all of those departments
were honeycombed

with political appointees.

- Stephanie St Clair will go
before the Seabury Commission

to testify about vice rackets

and the participation of the NYPD
in them.

- Due to her testimony,
over a dozen police officers,

including a lieutenant,
were then suspended from the NYPD.

LLOYD: She was definitely fearless.

She stood up to corrupt NYPD blue.

For anyone, let alone a Black woman
at that time,

to literally be pointing out
corrupt police officers in court,

naming and shaming them!

- In a lifetime of bold moves, that
one might have been the boldest.

LLOYD: Although St Clair managed to
get the NYPD off her back,

she still had the problem of
an ambitious, aggressive gang

from the Bronx
trying to muscle in on her turf.

- Prohibition is repealed,

leaving bootleggers like
Dutch Shultz looking for new ways

to make money.

And what could be more appealing
than muscling in

on the lucrative Numbers Game?

GREEN: Dutch Shultz especially
was known for making bold moves

to take over the bootlegging game
in the Bronx.

He was using those same tactics
to take over Numbers Game operations

in Harlem.

BEAN: But Stephanie St Clair
said no.

Harlem was about to become
a war zone.

New York, 1933.

Prohibition is repealed
and America celebrates.

But as the liquor flowed,
so too did the blood.

Among the many gangsters
Stephanie had to deal with,

none were more vicious,
more ruthless

than one of the city's biggest
bootleggers,

notorious for torture and murder...

Dutch Shultz.

REPORTER: Shultz was not known
for his gentle ways

with the opposition.

He and his mob kept New York City
in a constant state

of violence and bloody gunplay.

This was the face that struck terror
in rival mobsters.

- Real name, Arthur Flegenheimer.
He was born in the Bronx.

Eventually becomes a bootlegger
for several crime families

in New York City.

He was so successful at that,
that he was known as

the Beer Baron of the Bronx.

And he also made money
through paid protection.

- Dutch Shultz was a notorious,
ruthless mobster,

who made his fortune
during Prohibition.

Shultz had made a name for himself
by removing obstacles in his way.

And those obstacles were people.

He would torture people,
he had people killed.

Dutch Shultz, it's estimated that
at the height of his success

was bringing in about 20 million
dollars a year,

which for that time is a huge,
huge sum of money.

So when Prohibition ended,
obviously gangsters then

were looking at other ventures
to make up for these lost profits,

which were ginormous.

HARRIS: During the early
1930s, we see many white racketeers

whose funds have dried up
because Prohibition is over

look for new avenues of income.

The Numbers Game was seen as
the welfare clients' Wall Street,

it was called the �N� word pool.

This is a game
that only Blacks play.

This is a game
that�s not profitable.

But once many of the Black
racketeers started getting arrested

and some of their revenue was
printed in the newspapers,

white racketeers like Shultz wanted
to get into that game.

And many of them started to force
people out of the business.

GREEN: Dutch Shultz had power,

and he had the support of people
like Jimmy Hines,

who was a Tammany Hall
political machine, Democratic boss.

He was a huge, huge threat,
and that�s why so many people,

rather than try and fight him,
just succumbed to his wishes,

whether that be paying him a portion
of their business

or handing it over entirely.

HARRIS: And Stephanie St Clair was
one of his targets.

- And she was like, �No!�

And with that, all hell broke loose.

Harlem was at war.

You can go anywhere in America.
But you�re not coming into Harlem.

Harlem is ours,
Harlem is for Black people.

Stephanie said she�d resist any
attempt by Shultz

to breach her borders.

- And she did.
Shultz sent in his soldiers,

armed in forces
who used intimidation,

beatings...

..bombings and murder

to muscle in
on St Clair�s territory.

But as well as fighting back with
her own network of gangsters,

she was well ahead of her time

when it came to the weaponisation
of public opinion.

- The beef between those two really
on St Clair�s part is a public beef.

Both of them make this about saying
things about one another

in the newspaper.

St Clair is quick to go to
the New York Amsterdam News,

which is a Black newspaper

and talk about Schultz and other
white racketeers

coming into Harlem and taking over
this game.

And of course, wanting to project
a sense of toughness

and wanting to really keep
what she's grown. She's like, "No!"

FARMER: Stephanie said, �I�m not
afraid of Dutch Shultz

or any other man living,
he�ll never touch me.

I am sane and smart and fearless.�

LLOYD: She went to the newspapers
and wrote articles,

calling on anyone who was buying
a ticket, to buy Black.

HARRIS: This is many ways
is a form of economic nationalism.

If whites are treating you
in particular types of ways,

you should not do business with
these people.

So, challenging Shultz
in a newspaper

is just one of a variety of ways
that St Clair speaks out

against white encroachment.

LLOYD: The rivalry between Dutch
and Stephanie would escalate.

Dutch once sent an underling
to intimidate her.

St Clair pushed him in a closet

and told her bodyguards to, quote,
�Get rid of him."

- She dramatically walks through
Harlem

and goes to white businesses,

which serve as numbers drops
for white racketeers,

and she goes into those businesses,
she trashes the place,

and tells the white business owners

to get out of Harlem, you know,
this is Black game.

Just really causes a spectacle
at some of these stores.

FARMER: Legend has it that
at some point

she even had to go into hiding
because he had put a hit out on her,

and she retaliated in kind,
both in print and on the streets.

- She refused to let this man
walk over her

and take her business that
she'd worked so hard for

and that was so successful for her.

She waged an all-out war.

It�s estimated that it was
responsible for about 40 murders.

She fed information to the police
about Schultz's operations,

and due to this, they were able
to infiltrate his house

and seize 12 million dollars
of his money

and arrest a lot of his employees.

LLOYD: She went toe to toe.

I know so much of the violence is
vilified.

But I think we�ve got to remember
that we�re talking gangsters.

You couldn�t go to small claims
court. This isn�t a civil matter.

People had to work out
their grievances on the street,

and we�re talking
millions of dollars.

I think it�s great that
she stood up to him.

BEAN: But Dutch Shultz was soon
get his comeuppance

for defying the Commission,

the governing body of organised
crime in New York.

LLOYD: Dutch Shultz was being
prosecuted for tax evasion

by District Attorney Thomas Dewey.

- Racketeers succeed only
so long as they can prey upon

the fear or weakness of disorganised
or timid victims.

LLOYD: He asked the Organised Crime
Commission if he could kill Dewey,

but they unanimously denied
the request

for fear of bringing the full weight
of the government

down on all of them.

But Shultz put the hit out on Dewey
regardless.

Here was the loose cannon of Dutch,
doing what he wanted again.

So the Commission hired Murder Inc

to take Shultz out.

Murder Inc, or the Syndicate,
was an organised crime group

that acted as the enforcement arm
of the Commission,

led by Charles Lucky Luciano...

..Meyer Lansky...

..and Bugsy Siegel.

Incredibly, they were responsible
for between 400 and 1,000

contract killings
in that period alone.

BEAN: It�s 10:15pm on October 23rd,
1935.

Dutch Shultz is in the restroom
of one of his favourite restaurants,

the Palace Chop House
in Newark, New Jersey.

Two gunmen - Charles Workmen
and Mendy Weiss -

burst through the door
and opened fire.

LLOYD: The Commission took
no chances. They needed Dutch dead.

The gunmen intentionally used
rusty bullets

to increase the chances of sepsis
and infection

in case the gunshots themselves
were not fatal.

- Wanting to have the final word,

Stephanie immediately sends
a telegram to her enemy

on his deathbed,
signed "Madam Queen of Policy."

It read, "As you sow,
so shall you reap."

HARRIS: This is Galatians 6:7.

"All the evil that you have sown
and placed upon myself and others,

you�re reaping that now."

- I think when Stephanie sent
the telegram,

it shows really that she�s going
back to her true values.

This is someone who is always
fighting for the underdog.

This is someone who has that strong
moral sense

of what is right and what is wrong.

And she�s just reminding that person
of his wrongdoing

as her final word to him

so that he is reminded of really
where he�s going to go

after the moment he takes
his last breath.

LLOYD:
"As you sow, so shall you reap."

It�s poetic justice.

BEAN: And with no more battles
left to fight,

Stephanie St Clair got out the game,

passing her empire on to
her trusted enforcer Bumpy Johnson.

And you might think her story
ended there,

but she would soon cross paths
with a man known on the streets

as Black Hitler.

And this time,
things would get personal.

It�s 1935 and Stephanie St Clair�s
main rival, Dutch Shultz,

is six feet under.

With the turf wars over, Stephanie
steps back from the Numbers Game,

ready to enjoy her fortune
and live a quiet life.

But her peace wouldn�t last long.

She would fall straight into the
arms of Sufi Abdul Hamid,

a man the press would later call
Black Hitler.

- Sufi Hamed, whose real name is
Eugene Brown,

and Eugene Brown was a Chicago
political activist

who migrates to New York City.

- He was a religious leader
and a union leader

and he had a preference for
Nazi-style military dress.

And also he was very anti-Semitic.

And thus he earned the nickname
Black Hitler.

Like St Clair,
he was trying to advocate

for Black advancement.

So he organised a lot of boycotts
of white shops,

a lot of white Jewish shops.

He was a very flamboyant
and a very controversial figure.

HARRIS: His persona is very larger
than life.

This is someone who preaches from
the corner of 135th and Lennox Ave,

with black riding boots,
you know, colourful pants,

a white shirt, a really long cape,

a really big turban. He has
a really massive beard.

This would be a person that you
would stop and actually listen to.

Just not based upon necessarily
what he's saying,

but just based upon the way
he looks.

LLOYD: They were a power couple.

They were a power couple
stomping around Harlem.

I think this is really good for her
mythology and her brand.

Here was someone else speaking out
as vociferously as she did.

But it seems like Sufi
was only with her for the money.

And whilst he may have been
flamboyant and eye-catching,

his antisemitism was toxic

and stirred up ill-feeling
and tensions

with nearby Jewish districts.

- The marriage lasts for about
two to three years.

There's an alleged affair between
Stephanie St Clair�s friend,

Dorothy Matthews, who is a famous
Harlem occult leader.

So, Stephanie St Clair wants
to confront him.

- She waited for him when he was
going to meet his lawyer one day,

stood in the hallway,
and shot him three times.

- The first shot,
he's hit in the mouth,

cracks a tooth. The second shot
goes through his coat jacket.

And the third shot goes over
his head.

- In the trial, St Clair said he had
been treating her very poorly,

and that he'd been having
the affair.

But that also, her handling the gun,
which she claimed was his,

was only meant to scare him rather
than actually meant to shoot him.

HARRIS: She's arrested,
she's indicted and she's prosecuted

and she's given two to ten years
at the Westfield State Farm

in upstate New York.

LLOYD: Stephanie starts her second
stint behind bars.

Hamed, who survives the shooting,
tries to make a comeback.

But news of the affair did major
damage to his messianic image.

BEAN: What a character Hamed was.

He ends up trying to prove to
his followers

that he's not leading
a life of excess,

and the way he chooses to do that
is to publicly fill up the fuel

for his private airplane himself.

He ends up crashing the plane
and dying,

cos he hadn�t put enough fuel in it.

- After Stephanie St Clair
comes out of prison

in the early 1940s,

we really don't know a lot
about her.

The New York Amsterdam News
suggests

that she lived in seclusion
and travelled to the Caribbean.

Another ad suggests that
Stephanie St Clair was hospitalised

at a mental institution
in Central Islip, Long Island.

- She also appears in the late '60s

when she would have been about 77,

in a court document
where she accuses a van driver

of knocking her down.

She got $2,000, which is
the equivalent to $15,000 today.

I think why I like that story

is because she had also bought
a house,

but in terms of the records, she
wasn�t able to keep up payments.

And so it seems like even at 77,

she�d do what it takes
to get that money.

HARRIS: When the money is issued
to her lawyer,

all of these creditors come after
the money.

This is a person who has
a rags-to-riches story

and seemingly towards the end of her
life has a riches-to-rags story.

- Stephanie St Clair is
an extraordinary story.

From being a maid to a crime boss
to an activist.

- Stephanie was someone who really
fought to see change happen,

and not only that, but she fought
for that at a time

where she would be bearing the brunt
of a lot of force against her

to stop her from doing that.

So it wasn�t something that she was
able to speak really openly about.

- She was never one to resist
writing an editorial

and placing it in a magazine
or in the local newspaper,

where she decried the police
ignoring the civil rights

and the legal rights of Black people
in the community.

She talked openly and often about
the ways in which Black women

endured assault at the hands of
the police.

LLOYD: She rallied Black people.

They were talking about what it
meant to be Black in America

at a time when Black people were
finding their voice.

And not only did she find her voice,
she lived her voice.

- What started as a desire
to grow her own empire

became a way to give back.

A genuine desire to see
Black Americans lifted up.

That to me, that says
something fascinating

about human nature,
about solidarity.

You practice it enough,
no matter what the reason,

it becomes who you are.

- I think one of the reasons that
Stephanie St Clair is not remembered

and ensconced in history
the way others are,

is first and foremost because
she was a woman.

We often don't preserve
the histories and contributions

of women in general at the same rate
that we do with men,

and certainly not Black women.

- Folks like Stephanie St Clair have
been marginalised or excluded

from history books, because there's
a tendency to kind of spotlight

and become really preoccupied with
those who were doing the striving,

like those who were what we would
call a credit to the race.

But within that, more scholars are
looking at the complex lives

of working-class, ordinary
Black people.

I think there's a tendency now
to explore those people

who lived more complicated
and more layered lives.

- Perhaps the legacy that
Stephanie leaves behind

is that despite all of
the discrimination,

there's something unyielding
in the human spirit,

a refusal to accept the hand
you've been dealt.

- A part of her legacy is
persevering over tough obstacles,

especially when you're kind of born
into a world

where you're not supposed to thrive,
let alone survive.

- Why isn't Stephanie St Clair
better known today?

Would she be more widely remembered
if she'd been white or a man?

Or is it because she knew
when to quit?

We'll never know for sure,

but perhaps we should let HER have
the last word.

ST CLAIR: "Many persons have said
that they�re afraid for me

and that I should be careful.

I'm not going to be any more careful
than I have been.

Please have no fear for me.

I have no fear of anybody.

I'm going to continue to fight
until the members of the race

get their just and legal rights."

- She was the OG,
the Original Gangster.

Black, Queen, Badass.

# LAURYN HILL:
So Much Things To Say

# Yeah

# Yeah, yeah

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

# Why, why, why, why, why, why

# Why, why

# They've got so much things to say
right now

# They've got so much things to say

# They've got so much things to say
right now

# They've got so much things to say

# I'll never forget, no way

# How they crucified
Jesus Christ... #

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