Madame Queen of Policy

This chapter maps out black women's participation in arguably one of New York's most profitable and contested social and cultural pastimes of the early twentieth century: the illegal numbers racket. It uses the mysterious and unique life of prominent Harlem numbers banker Madame Stephanie St. Clair—the “Numbers Queen”—as a window to illuminate how some black numbers entrepreneurs used the city's gambling enterprise to launch lucrative underground enterprises and as a way to cast a spotlight on black New Yorkers' individual and collective encounters with race, gender, and class prejudice and white supremacy. On one hand, she boldly and skillfully rejected and refashioned elite versions of propriety. On the other hand, St. Clair's proper outward attire of fashionable dresses, furs, and headdresses and her use of the moniker “Madame” reinforced conventional images of New Negro womanhood and material wealth.