February 23, 2023 • 45 mins
A legend. A boss. A queen. Stephanie St. Claire ran Harlem's baddest numbers game, thumbing her nose at the mob. Her elegant life took a turn, though, when she married an audacious con artist. Was hooking up with Black Hitler a wise move? What do you think.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Zeron, Do
I know you? No? Oh cool? What's your name? Hey?
You know I'm Elizabeth Utton. Nice to meet you. You
know it's ridiculous. I do Zarin. Oh yes, pet rocks.
That ridiculous, right, Okay, if you just stop, just stop period.
Pet rocks. I've heard I heard about him, So I decided, like,
(00:22):
what is a pet rock? I went and looked it up,
and there's like a lot more to this than I
realized really. So it was this dude named Gary Doll.
He was an advertising executive. He was talking with his
friends at a bar and they were talking about, like
complaining about I gotta walk my dog and get up
so early in the morning. And he's like, oh, you know,
would be the perfect pet of rock. And they were
like yeah whatever, Gary, and say He's like oh yeah.
And he went out and he decided I'm gonna make
(00:43):
pet rocks into a thing. So he did. And so
he decides he gets custom cardboard boxes made. He gets
this little like uh like feeding and care instructions thing
that's filled with like puns like try to teach your
your pet rock to do tricks like sit and stay right,
and then there's difficult ones like come like, don't want
to be able to figure out that one yet maybe
(01:04):
you can that kind of jokes. Right, Well, anyway, it
lasted six months, the whole fat right. But in that
time he sells millions of these. He sells like about
one million of them for about four dollars each in
nineteen seventies dollars, which is like wild to me. He
becomes a millionaire. He then buys a bar in Los Gatos.
He's a local, Oh, I know, California locally. Yeah. Anyway,
(01:27):
he regrets doing it. In nineteen eighty eight, he said,
sometimes I look back and wonder if my life would
have been simple or if I hadn't done it. Oh,
he got things got complicated after that. Oh yeah, I
mean people would like just like sue him about my
pet rock dropped on my foot or I don't know,
he's getting a lot of lawsuits from cranks and waccos. Anyway,
Gary Doll pet rocks. There you go. That is ridiculous.
(01:49):
Do you know what else is ridiculous? No, tell me
a badass woman who stands up to the mob and
black hitler. This is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd
(02:19):
and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine
percent murder free and one ridiculous that we're murder free, right, Yes, okay,
so you're going to day. Well, that basically means that
the crimes that we cover aren't specifically murder, and the
criminals we cover aren't murders. We've both said that we
(02:41):
can't make light of the last day of someone's life
and the horrific events it's around it no good, and
you know that day is also the worst day of
the lives of that person's loved ones, Right, So we
keep it light and I'm going to do that today. Okay,
But here's the thing. The woman I'm going to tell
you about is murder adjacent. We'll say you already said
black Hitler's I'm figuring this one's gonna get wild, little
(03:02):
fid Well. Her crimes are incredible and ridiculous in all
senses of the word, but murder seems to like swirl
around her. Okay, So she didn't really kill anyone. She's
a murder black hole. It's just happening around her. She
fought a guy in self defense and he fell and
hit his head. Okay, but her life is so so,
so much more than that other guy fell on knife
(03:23):
seven times exactly. And she's so fascinating that I figured
I'd use up our one percent on this. Okay, I'm
into it all right. So I'm talking today about Stephanie
Saint Clair. Oh, yes, aka Queenie Saint Clair, aka Madame Queen,
Madame Saint Clair and Queen of the policy rackets. For
some respect on her name. Yes, Stephanie Saint Clair born
(03:45):
on Christmas Eve eighteen ninety seven in Mule, Grandtaire, West
French Indies, you say so. Yes. She was born of
African descent to a single mother named Felicienne, beautiful name,
I know, Felicienne. She made sure that Stephanie went to school,
but then Feliciane got sick, so at fifteen years old,
Stephanie dropped out in order to take care of her mom.
(04:08):
After her mom passed away, Stephanie moved from the West
Indies to Montreal, Moan and she was part most likely
part of the nineteen ten to nineteen eleven Caribbean domestic
scheme that moved domestic workers up to Canada. So one
of the Great North migrations for Canada. Yeah, exactly, and
(04:28):
specifically to Quebec. So from there she immigrates to the
United States. She gets to New York in nineteen twelve.
She speaks English, Spanish, French, and that means she can
like skillfully navigate a lot of neighborhoods and a lot
of situations. Oh yeah, and she's slide in three situations
a bit totally well. So she has this brief relationship
after she gets her with a small time crook named Duke,
(04:49):
and he got caught up in nasty business and he
met a terrible end. But it had she had nothing
to do with it, is not by her hand. So
then she meets this new guy ed she decides to
sell drugs with it. Okay, with some help from ed um,
she makes thirty thousand dollars. Do we know what drugs
she was selling? No, but I'm thinking, what is it
nineteen fifteen, Like I'm figuring like it's cocaine adjacent type
(05:15):
stuff or even yeah, some of the good gauge weed. Yeah,
So she makes them jazz. She makes thirty thousand dollars
after just a few months, okay, and then she decides
I don't need ed right, and Ed finds out and
then they have a disagreement and it didn't end well
because he fell. Oh right, another guy fell bad. That's
(05:36):
the guy that fell. So after this, she's like, I'm
going to hire my own crew of guys I'm hiring
When he fell, did he fall off a building or
like he just felt backwards? Okay, I'll just wonder. You said,
hell backwards. You can fall off a lot of things.
He was clumsy. Yeah. Yeah, So she was like bribing
the cops to leave her alone, and then um, this
new kind of gang that she had. She's got serious income.
(05:57):
So she takes ten thousand dollars of that and she
invests it into a lottery game in Harlem and the
numbers games. Well yeah, it's called policy banking. Yeah, so
it's mix of gambling, investing, and then playing the lottery.
Policy banking wasn't really legal. The thing is, at the times,
bank weren't banks weren't accepting black clients. Yeah, so black
(06:21):
Americans couldn't legally invest their own money in white bank
you'd do, right, And so for many policy banking was
the only option if they wanted to grow their money.
If you didn't have black banks in your area, or
if you or if you'd run a foul the black well,
there's that too. Yeah. So it was common practice for
cosmopolitan black communities and major cities all over the country
(06:42):
to be involved in this numbers game as a means
of investing. Yeah. So there's this man, Stephen Robertson. He
wrote a book called Playing the Numbers, Gambling in Harlem
between the Wars, and he said of policy banking, quote,
it was akin to putting money in the stock market.
Many saw it as an investment, and it was just
as risky as putting money in the stock market back then.
(07:02):
So true, this is how it would work. Players would
place bets, so a nickel was considered a big bet
at the time, on a number between one and nine
hundred ninety nine. The organizers figured out what the winning
numbers were based on two figures, the total daily clearances
among all the member banks and the Federal Reserve Bank
(07:22):
credit balance. So they would combine the second and third
digits from the bank clearings with a third digit from
the Federal Reserve Bank balance. So, per Playing the Numbers
that book, the game worked out as such. The last
Monday before Christmas, nineteen thirty, the clearings were five hundred
eighty nine million dollars and the balance was one hundred
(07:44):
and sixteen million dollars. Hence the winning number was eight
nine six, So it's five eight eighty nine and then six.
Anyone who bet on eight ninety six got to pay out,
So this is going along great. Then in the late thirties,
financial institutions stopped announcing their daily figures, so the policy
bankers they had to figure out, where are we going
(08:06):
to get our numbers. They turned to the mutual totals
of what was paid out on horse races. So Saint Clair,
she's mathematically gifted. This is the numbers that I my
family played. I heard about this exactly. So she's she's
like this math whiz. Her lottery is just raking in cash.
She was such a boss that people started calling her
Queenie in Manhattan and Madame Saint Clair in Harlem. So
(08:30):
the Harlem numbers game, though that's a man's world at
this time. Oh yeah, she was like pretty much the
only woman out there and involved. But she's generating all
these jobs because her game is huge. She's making all
this money, so she's hiring numbers runners and Henchman and Henchman,
but she had like fifty runners at a time hired.
Do you know who worked as a numbers runner for
(08:52):
Queeny when she was a teenager, I don't know. Gordon Parks,
Ella Fitzgerald is not incredible. So she Queenie lives this
absolutely lavish lifestyle. In the twenties, she was making about
twenty thousand dollars a year, and that's kind of like
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars today. That's not bad
at a nineteen thirties there's this journalist who figured out
(09:14):
that Queeney was worth probably around five hundred thousand dollars,
so that's like eleven million dollars today. She owned property
and she was just like building wealth the only way
that she could. She lived in an apartment on four
o nine Edgecomb Avenue that's in sugar Hill, looking over
what is now Jackie Robinson Park. Yes, couple blocks from
the Harlem River. There were a lot of esteemed members
(09:37):
of the Harlem community living in this same building. Callaway
the painter Aaron Douglas, future Supreme Court justice. They're a
good night, Marshal Nice Duke Gellington in this mix web. So,
Katherine Butler Jones was a neighbor of hers, and she
remembers seeing Queeney in the halls. This is what she said,
(09:58):
Madam Stephanie Saint Clair raising through the lobby with her
fur coat dramatically flowing behind her. She had a mystical
aura about her, and she wore exotic dresses with a
colorful turban wrapped around her head. Yeah. So she's just
like floating through the goddess. Yeah. So she she donated
to organizations that were focused on racial progress, and voting
(10:20):
rights was a big thing for her. She regularly paid
for ads to involved in suffragist movements. Essentially well at
this point in the thirties, I backed it up to you.
I'm sorry, but I mean before I'm sure. And so
she paid for ads in local papers because she wanted
to educate the community on their legal rights. Here's something
that she put in the Amsterdam News. Quote to the
(10:42):
members of my race, and that's in all caps. If
officers meet you on the street and suspect you of anything,
do not let them search you on the street, or
do not let them take you in any hallway to
be searched. If the police should ring your doorbell and
you open your door, refuse to let them search your
house unless they show you a search warrant. So it's
just these are our basic civil rights as Americans, something
(11:03):
that all of us should know. And at people because
didn't know, presume that if a cop is asking you questions,
that the best thing to do is to try to
exculpate yourself and tell them why you're in a right
and we're the best thing to do is not say
anything exactly everybody, And so she's wanting them to have
the same information as everybody else. I don't act like
a perp, right, So she was. She spoke out against
(11:24):
police brutality against the black community, and she filed complaints
about police harassment with local authorities. Um, I think it's
important to stop and acknowledge how dangerous that was for her.
Oh right, so the New York police she is brave
like to go ahead and bad racist at this time. Well,
of course nothing came of her complaints, right, probably not?
So what does she do? She ran more ads in
(11:45):
Harlem papers accusing senior officers of corruption. She just keeps
upping the antiamus. Here's this is from the nineteen, nineteen
twenty nine edition of the Amsterdam News quote, I don't
understand how these police who are supposed to be the
protection of the people can make raids for so called
policy slips when these same men are participants of the
(12:06):
game themselves. So she's calling out, look, you're my customers,
and then you turn around, you're going to raid me out,
thinks Okay, I love how she's just constantly taking out
ads in the papers. That's her bulletin board. So this
time though, when she calls out her own customers, she
gets a response. She got arrested. They came after her
(12:26):
and she wound up doing eight months in a workhouse
because of that. Would Queenie take this lying down? But no, no,
of course not. So she stayed cool. And then she
went and testified to the Seabury Commission, which was a
joint legislative committee formed by the New York legislature, And
that was because the governor FDR he had this probe
(12:48):
into corruption in New York City. So she tells them
all about the kickbacks that she paid to police officers.
She tells them all about the cops who played the
Harlem numbers games. This time she gets results. More than
a dozen officers were fired. Yeah, this is a big deal.
This is part of how he made his name exactly.
So it wasn't just crooked cops and politicians that she
(13:08):
aired out in her newspaper ads. If men came courting
and she wasn't interested, she'd run ads. Oh yeah, this
is what she quote to whom it may concern. I
have received letters and telephone messages from men which have
annoyed me very much, and I take this occasion to
ask them publicly to please not annoy me. I, Mademoiselle
(13:32):
Saint clair Am, not looking for a husband or a sweetheart.
If you do not stop annoying me, I shall publish
their names and letters in the newspaper. And you know
who you are. Right. I love how everything she does
is from this really confident and serene place. She's unflappable.
She's definitely a queen. Yeah, she has definitely earned the name.
So prohibition comes and goes, the Harlem numbers game just
(13:57):
keeps cooking along. Oh yeah, it doesn't mean anything, but
another challenge is at hand. Dude, Harlem's number game runs
until like the seventies. No, it just keeps going. But
here's this thing pro lottery basically, yeah, pretty much, prohibition ends.
It had been big business for a lot of people,
a lot of people like dancers and musicians. People you're
(14:18):
not thinking, you're not just people were bootleggers, but everybody
in the work the club. But when you look at
the bootleggers, they have to find a new source of revenue.
When we come back, I'll tell you who moved where
and how and why? Nice? All right, we're back. Hey,
(14:52):
look at us, Say Elizabeth, what you do when we've
left off. Let me give you a little recap. Queenie
Saint Clair, she was ruling the policy bank numbers game,
had worked hard for people in her community. She also
had now had a principal, Lieutenant Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson Bumpy.
He was a culture gentleman, but he was also a badass. Yeah,
(15:15):
oh yes he is. He They called him Bumpy because
he had a large bone on his forehead. Yeah. So
he and Queeney they're basically running her element at this point.
Oh yes, they're raking in the dough. They're living these
really comfortable lifestyles. Prohibitions coming going has no effect. Now
are they partners? Were member business like seers like, we
(15:37):
both get it exactly. I like this. She got some
on her level totally. So prohibition comes to an end.
Other criminal elements are losing money. No more illicit hooch
to sell. As such, this means that there's a loss
of the cash cow for both the Jewish and Italian
crime families in New York, among among other diversification. They
(16:00):
make a move on the Harlem gambling scene. Oh yes,
they did so, as you said, Bronx mob boss Arthur
dutch Schultz Flagenheimer. Oh yeah, he kicked it off. Yeah,
he's the one. He gave the black and brown communities
in Harlem two options, give up their numbers business to
him or kind of in on the action. Those are
the choices. So dutch Schultz, he has high powered politicians
(16:24):
on his payroll, everybody, he had James Pines, leader of
Tammany Hall, everybody on his parents. And he'd also beat
and kill anyone who didn't go along with his protection scheme. Yeah,
he was ruthless totally. So this led New York State
Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey. And he was smart as hell too.
I mean, he wasn't one of those like twitchy mobsters.
This is somebody who was calculating cold and would have
(16:44):
been an amazing business man legitimately well, Thomas Dewey says
that he's public enemy number one because he was the
guy he ran. Now. Queeney, though, she's as brave and
as steadfast as ever, even when faced with Dutch Schultz,
she said, quote, I'm not a f of Dutch Schultz
or any other living man. He'll never touch me. I
will kill Schultz if he sets foot in Harlem. He's
(17:06):
a rat. The policy game is my game. Wow, that's
a huge statement to him tending to kill Dutch, So
that's not even it. So then Queeney and Bumpy they
send a message to Dutch by attacking business storefronts that
ran his own betting operations. They all on the attack. Queeney,
what else did she do? She took to the papers again,
(17:28):
so she started running ads encouraging the people of Harlem
to quote play black. So she's like she wanted gamblers
to only use black owned and controlled operations, right, So
she and Bumpy then they tip off the police about
Schultz's illegal activities. They raid Schultz's house, more than a
dozen of his men get arrested. They seize the equivalent
(17:50):
of about twelve million in cash today. Snap, what does
dutch Schultz do? He retaliates, Oh, violently. I imagine he
calls Queene at her own home and threatens her, and
that of course didn't work. He then kidnapped and murdered
her men. So there's there's our one person, some of
our one percon Yes, and she wouldn't budge. She's like
no by her men. Do you mean her henchman? Yeah?
(18:13):
So then dutch Schultz puts a hit out on Queenie. Okay,
this is what she had to say about it. We
know who who he hired for. No, she said she
hid in a cellar, quote while the super a friend
of mine, covered me with coal. So she knew that
the killer was coming in the building. Went to the cellar.
Super the superintendent of the building covers her with coal
(18:34):
to hide. Wow. Another time, Yeah, another time Schultz sent
a henchman to intimidate her. But you know Queeny's going
to Queenie. Yes, So she got the jump on him.
She pushed him into a closet, locked him in, and
then ordered her bodyguards to quote take care of him.
So that's another part of our one persons. Well, I
(18:54):
don't know for certain though, that she meant what we
all think she meant, because like maybe she understood that
hurt people hurt people, and that she wanted her men
to have an encounter therapy session with the guy, like
nurture him into a kinder state, lots of cozy blankets
and comfort for you, take care of him, take care
of him, feel good. Well anyway, so Duch shelts, he's
(19:15):
like bringing way too much danger and way too much
police attention and death. Why can't Queeny do her thing
in peace? That's what I wanted. She picked a fight
with mad touch shots. Well, she knew what she had
to do. She went legit she did. She passed the
crown to Bumpy, and she said, you're now in charge
(19:36):
of my entire criminal enterprise, and she trusted him. Yeah,
but what did Bumpy do? Well, Bumpy turned around and
made a deal with who Luck. So Lucky took over
Schultz's spots with a percentage going to Bumpy, and the
Italians now had to go through Bumpy if they had
any problems in Harlem. And that was the safest option
(19:59):
for Bumpy. That is the absolute smasting for good done. Yep,
so lucky Luciano. He felt like all of Dutch Schultz's
craziness was damaging the entire Cosin Nostra in New York.
In nineteen thirty five, he went to the commission the
bosses of the Five Families, and he had a hit
put on Shoults. He pretty much it helped form the commission.
I mean Frank Costello. There's a bunch of people, but
(20:20):
he's like a major player, the one who he goes
to them. He's like, Schultz is a problem. Put a
hit on him, he asks for it, he gets it.
Um Schultz. He gets sprayed with bullets while on the
toilet at the Palace chop House in Newark, New Jersey,
and he gets taken to the hospital. Queen, he had
nothing to do with the shooting. Can I just say
that she's not part there? However, she wasn't mourning the guy.
(20:44):
So when she found out, she wired a telegram to
his deathbed and this is what it said, Yes, this
is what it said, as ye's so, so shall ye
reap Galai six seven on that one? That's amazing And
she signed it Madame Queen of Policy. She's stone cold
(21:09):
on top this this act made the papers. The pers
sending the te made the paper. How did the nurses tell?
I guess Dutch Shultz. He died on October twenty fourth,
nineteen thirty five, one day after the shooting. I suppose
reaping when he had sown. Oh yeah. So after this,
Queenie eventually led a man into her life. She found
a partner and a man named sufi Abdul Hamid or
(21:32):
Eugene Brown. Oh okay. Before he moved to New York,
he'd been living in Chicago, calling himself Bishop Conshunkin, a
Buddhist cleric. Okay, so he's not like Noble drew Alie.
I thought he's like Black Moorish. Oh yeah, he is,
oh okay. So he was the eventual leader of an
Islamic Buddhist cult. He's a black separatist. Yes, and he
used to tell people that he was born in the
(21:54):
shadows of the Egyptian Pyramids. I guess of then, yeah,
he wanted to make a move. Of course, of course
he did. So he goes to Queeny and he asks
for money fund my dream project. We're in the in
the forties at this point, thirties okay, and she says no.
But they kept in contact okay. And then one night
(22:15):
he declared his love and said will you marry me?
And she said give me three days to think it over. Well,
they really stayed in content, huh. And then after three
days she goes, yep, I'll marry you. She accepts. What
so in nineteen thirty six they get married. What's the scam?
What's the angle? Queenie? But not legally so Hamide. He
draws up a contract that binds their mutual assets as
(22:39):
well as them their persons for ninety nine years. This
is some weird like, I don't trust a man who
wants to tign a content. And this also made it
into the papers, this whole union right. There was a
particularly barbed account of the marriage in a paper called
The New York Age. Familiar with it? Yeah, I know
that it exists. It's a prominant black paper. At the time.
(23:03):
They kind of roast Hamide, making fun of his outfit.
This is what how they described his clothes. Quote. His
perennial garb, in addition to his turban, comprises a green
cape and a shirt, knee breeches and writing booths. Wait
knee breeches and a cape. Dudes walk around Harlem and
knee breaches. He's like his own special superhero. They took
digs at him, claiming to be oh, and they like
(23:27):
pointed out his criminal history. And then they really went
hard at Queeney really because this is what they said.
They said they didn't believe her claims that dutch Schultz
wanted to kill her. This is what it said. Quote.
It was this writer's opinion throughout the publicity seekers rantings
that it was beneath dutch Schultz's dignity to waste valuable
ammunition to silence her. Sounds like some black intellectuals jealous. Well,
(23:49):
it was known as the distinguished Black newspaper of opinion. Yeah,
they're not gonna celebrate criminals, but the whole high minded
like oh and then also with the cutting dismissing part,
like so they're also lifting him up at the same time,
like he wouldn't have busy business with you. That's the
come on now, So anyway, go back to your Claude
McKay poetry. Back up. So, anyway, all of Queenie's resources
(24:13):
were bound to Hamide. Thanks to this contract, ten grand
was placed in a trust of his was placed in
a trust for her. Oh he does have something, well,
I don't know who's ten grand wasn't really his. The
document though, wasn't legally binding, but he said it was
binding under Sharia law. What the he is a Muslim
(24:34):
Buddhist who follows Sharia law of his own making. Yeah, okay,
you just want to keep ending. Yeah, we're on the
same green It gets so much better slash words. The
contract also had a clause though, that the couple had
a year to figure out if this relationship would actually work.
If it didn't, they would split and the contract would
be avoided. So there was an annulment clause. Kind Yeah, essentially,
(24:57):
if they feel it was it was working after a year,
then they would get married for real in the eyes
of the US government. Oh they doubled down. Yeah, so
so Hamide, he's setting off alarm bells for you, a
million of them. He should rightly so, like a china
shop he had. He had a nickname. Yeah, it's a
bad one. Yeah, let me set this up for you.
(25:18):
A historian named Murray Friedman wrote a book called What
Went Wrong The Creation and Collapse of the Black Jewish Alliance.
In it, he talks about how Hamide had quote courted
the German American booned and and the Nazi like Christian Front. Yeah,
the German American booned from thirty late thirties. Yeah, it's
(25:39):
all coming together, chanting the marching. Amide was a strong
advocate for hiring of black employees. That's great, that's valid, sure,
but he created a negative to balance out that positive
by orchestrating violent boycotts against Jewish owned and Italian and Greek.
That's why doesn't matter. There's also his fashion choices. He
liked to wear out fits that incorporated Nazi style military
(26:02):
shirts big Hugo boss fan, and he wore a dagger
in his belt get out and he required cape, the
gold lined cape. And he also wore a purple turban. Yeah,
he looks unhinged in picture. Why would Queen he go
for this? Well, and also that doesn't make sense, what
is she doing? His anti Semitic hate speech was off
(26:26):
the charts, super offensive, super dangerous, and as such, he
was known throughout the community as Black Hitler. So wait
a minute, if you're known as Black Hitler in the thirties,
the third before, when Hitler was first making a name
from the hibster of Hitler's. He's like, oh, you haven't
heard about him yet. Not everyone knows this guy coming up,
(26:46):
and I'm the black hymn so horrible, I mean, what
the hell? Bro like? Well, and he had a labor union,
of course, it went through name changes. First it was
called the Negro Industrial and Clerical Alliance, Then it was
the Afro American Federation of Labor. Adam Clayton Powell what
the first African American to be elected to Congress from
New York. He worked with him for a short time
(27:07):
in labor protests store boycotts. Powell dipped out when this
is what's interesting, when Himid went from just targeting whites
and Jews to going after light skinned black people like himself.
That's where he drew the line. Adam to talk. So
he has this labor union, well, rival black labor unions
didn't like his labor bet not. He would collect these
(27:28):
one dollar dues from each unemployed black worker who wanted
a job at a store before he'd start a pressure
campaign to get him hired. But the campaign is not falling.
He's getting really wealthy off of this, so he's charging
people money to have does it basically say if you
give me this dollar, I'll go put pressure on these
people to hire you. And they're like, all right, bet,
and he's doing it for like a lot of people,
and it was like they only have so many spots,
(27:50):
and he's like, look, I we're gonna get you a
job dollar a week. I'll go and puts costume and
black Hid are going to get it done. So one
of his critics was Hammy Snipes. Okay it was a
political activist and a former member of Marcus Garvey's Universal
Negro Improvement Association in African Communities League. Snipes was critical
(28:11):
of Hamid and his tactics, and Hamid didn't like that.
So in October nineteen thirty six, Snipes is giving this speech,
He's calling for equal pay for African American members of
the meat cutters union. Hamid and his buddy Alan McAlpine
they attacked Snipes and they stabbed him in the arms. Oh,
physically attacktives. Yeah yeah, I thought you were saying like rhetorically, no, no,
(28:33):
this is where they like start stepping across lines. Snipes
gets ten stitches and the growing support of the community.
So Hamide he gets twenty days in prison and then
is eventually barred from picketing. That's it. So in response,
he's like, fine, you won't let me pick it. I'm
going to start a mosque, the Universal Holy Temple of Tranquility.
(28:54):
So he's like one of the first black Muslims in
this country, but he wasn't a so seated with Nation
of Islam. Yeah, I assuming he's basically a rival of
Noble drew a Lee, same time, same area, and he's
coming up with his version of like a back to
Africa spiritual movement. Right, he's when Marcus Garvey's going to
try to get you there, I'm going to try to
get your spirit there exactly exactly. So it was very
(29:16):
It was a heady man. He starts calling himself a bishop,
which okay, of course made the funny hat. He gets
a brand new nickname. He's no longer a black Hitler,
black miter, black moftie. I was close so August in
August nineteen thirty seven, he opened his organization to Jewish members.
So wait, now he's cool. Now he's with the chosen
(29:37):
people because he needs what from them? Money? I guess,
I don't know. He'll take anyone with money. I would suppose.
I don't know. So he's doing his thing, he's running
his mosque and he's running around on Queeney. Yeah, let's
take a break. Let's let's let's work on this. Oh
my god, let's get calm down. Let's listen to some
smooth ads. Just cool out. When we get back, I'll
(30:00):
tell you what happens when you cross Queenie. Hey's Aaron
(30:24):
a good good Okay, those commercials are really smarting. No. Right,
So when we left off Queene Saint Clair, she'd married
Black Hitler. Yes, he's a black separatist general slees Ball,
anti Semit con man philandrap embarrassment to her and the race. Yes.
Three ten pm on January eighteenth, nineteen thirty eight, Hamid
Black Hitler. He's heading out of his apartment on three
(30:46):
O nine West one hundred and twenty fifth Street in Harlem.
This is thirty eight before. I'm just trying to find
the year. Yeah, and he's on his way to go
see his lawyer and he runs into Queeny in the
third floor hallway. Zaren close you? Oh yeah, I want
you to picture it. You're on foot and you've just
(31:07):
left the Apollo theater. You're in charge of booking acts there.
You're walking down West one hundred and twenty fifth Street
on a quick break before you head back to work.
You want to get some air, maybe stop in somewhere
for an egg cream. There's a great fountain not too
far up the street. You're whistling some Mozart as you walk.
As you pass the five story apartment building on three
O nine West twenty fifth, you decide to poke your
(31:30):
head in and say hi to your friend, Clarence Dade.
He's the elevator operator there. He loves Mozart, and you
just got a bunch of records from Europe that you
want to share with him. A few weeks ago, on Christmas,
the two of you had listened to Arturo Tuscanini conduct
the NBC Symphony Orchestra on US radio for the first time. Now,
it was mostly Vivaldi, whom no one seemed to really
(31:52):
play at the time, but there was a lot of
Mozart and Brahms. And you've been whistling ever since. I'm
you are You step into the lobby, you Greek Clarence.
You're just about to tell him about the records when
a shot rings out, then another, then another. Clarence looks stunned.
The two of you race up the stairs, listening at
each landing to see if that's where the shot originated.
You reach the third floor landing and Clarence yaged the
(32:14):
door open. You stay in stairwell in case you have
to run back down for help. You peek into the
hall and you see Clarence standing over a large man
who's sprawled on the floor. A well dressed woman stands
beside them. That's Queenie Saint Clair. You think to yourself.
A few doors down a neighbor woman had her head
it poked out the door. Is he okay? Asked that
resident Nettie Roach. She's panicked. He's alive, replies Clarence Zarin.
(32:39):
Run down to the lobby and call for help. It
You dash down the stairs in elegant Zaren style, speed
lifting yourself off the banisters in like early Parkour arches
and leaps. You grab the phone and you hit the
receiver for the operator. Queeny Saint Clair just shot Black Hiller.
You're about to tell the operator that it served him right,
but you keep that to yourself. The police arrived. Queeney's arrested,
(33:01):
Black Hitler lived, So there's no one percent involved here, Queenie.
She gave interviews in the weeks leading up to the trial.
She posed for photographs from her room in the women's
detention prison in Manhattan, as well as photos at the
one twenty third Street police station. So she's just making
an event of it. At the trial, Queeney testified that
(33:23):
Hamid was a gambler, that he was involved in business
ventures that went nowhere, wiped out all his cash, and
he was just constantly asking her for money. What really
ground her gears though, was that Hamid had a mistress.
She was a Jamaican fortune teller named Dorothy Matthews who
went by the name Fu Fundam. Yeah, Fu fu Ttam
(33:47):
fo fum. Queeney accused Fundam and Hamid of trying to
start businesses using her money. What was one of the
ventures selling manure. Queeney also said that they tried to
poison her and it wasn't a killer, but to gain
her trust by quote unquote caring for her in her state. Yeah,
and then she would like they would try and get
(34:08):
her to give them loans when she was all dazed. Yeah,
So talking about that confrontation in the hallway. This is
what Queeny said. Quote, I didn't want to kill him.
I only wanted to scare him. If I killed him,
I would have died. So she loves him. Oh okay, yeah,
I got you now. It took me a second. But
what I think it was, I meant no, I don't know,
(34:35):
so I'm just wondering, Queeny says. Queeny says that the
gun is a means right. Quote. When I tried to
grab the gun from him, he threw me against the
wall and bit my finger. It was during the struggle
to gain possession of the gun to keep him from
killing me that it went off three times. Yeah. She
(34:57):
holds up her hand. She's got her fingers wrapt in
white tape. She slowly unwraps the tape and shows the
jury her wounds from where he bitter black hitler bit
my finger. And then they have this nurse Rosa Glover,
she's from the detention center. She comes and she verifies, yeah,
those are teeth marks on her hand. Um, Nettie Roach
(35:19):
that neighbor that you saw in the hall She backs
up Queeney's testimony. She says, look, I looked out Hamid's
holding the gun and said I'll shoot you to Queenie.
So that's what the neighbor sees. Queenie's lawyer gets Hamide
to admit that his real name is Eugene Brown and
that he was from Philadelphia, like h Rat Brown's dad,
I think. So he admitted that Dorothy Matthew's aka Fo Fatam,
(35:44):
Buttim was his mistress. Okay, so he confesses to that.
Queenie's attorney he get he got one hundred dollars fine.
When he tried to push Hamid to talk about how
he got the nickname black Hitler. Do you imagine him
like in court, like her name's wrap up, like who
here would go back in time and kill baby black Hitler?
(36:04):
Do you think he had like the dash L at
the end of his name. Oh yeah, well that you
know that's black mors, So he probably didn't. He probably
had dash m because he wanted to be distinct. He's
the next So the lawyer right is like, tell us
how why they call you black Hitler? They just like
knock it off. That's immaterial, and now you gotta pay
(36:24):
one hundred dollars fine because you won't let it go.
Because he wouldn't stop with the black lighter. I know. Um,
so what did Hamid say? He claimed that Queeney shot
him on site three times, beimming. He said that the
first shot singed his mustache and chipped his teeth. The
second one chipped his teeth. Uh was she fired a
(36:45):
twenty two? The second one grazed his arm and burned
his coat. What the third bullet lodged in a wall?
So you're pal Clarence. He testified too. He said that
he heard a boom and then he heard hamide yell
I am shot. He said that he heard Queeney say
as he approached, he's lying. He was shooting at me. So, Clarence,
(37:08):
here's the whole conversation. The patrolman who made the arrest
also testified. His name is Frederick Damro. No he was
called to the stand by the prosecution. Damro said he
questioned Queeny right after the shooting. He asked her, why
did you shoot your husband? She replied, I got tired
of paying. Queeny denied ever speaking to him or any
(37:29):
police staff in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. That
lines up with her standard practice. Right. It should be noted, though,
six months after the trial damro. He gets indicted for
conspiracy and grand larceny for setting up and shaking down
a Hungarian upholstery manufacturer. No a dirty New York century.
His word isn't really worth much, and his actions lined
(37:51):
up with what Queeney had been saying her whole life. Anyway.
Unfortunately for Queeny, a ballistic specialist testified and said the
gun had to be at least eighteen inches away from
Hamid when it went off, so she plt her in
a tussle. She pulled her on back. There was no
gunshot residue on his clothing. He moved fast, so much
for the he was shooting at me defense. The prosecution
(38:12):
rests that's it. It took the jury three hours to
deliver their verdicts. Also not good. Yeah, they found her
guilty of possession of a deadly weapon and first degree assault.
She gets sentenced to two to ten years in state
prison for women in Bedford Hills, New York. The judge
concluded a sentencing by saying, quote, this woman has been
living by her wits all of her life. She has
(38:35):
a bad temper and must learn that she can't go
around shooting in other people. He starts out like it's
a compliment, and then if he gets to like finger Wagon,
they all stop with your pop. Wait, this is America, man,
this is what we do. So what were her last
words as she left the courthouse, You can eat, According
to journalist Sumitra Nadu quote. One news source claimed she
(39:00):
after her infamously sinister laugh and merrily thanked the judge.
Another wrote that she was escorted out of the room,
stealing a baleful glance at McVeigh and hissing q louse.
One article claimed she said, with dramatic a plum quote,
he'd done me wrong and he'll get his just desserts.
(39:20):
Yet another wrote that she simply blew a kiss. I
like that one. I bet she was asking Bumpy, you
know this man's address, get lucky a home visit? Well,
so me. Less than a year later, he's flying his
private plane. This guy du well, he crashed it on
(39:41):
Long Island after running out of fuel and he died.
Are you happy Zarin? And then in all the papers
it was like he and his white secretary. So yeah,
she lived. He he didn't make it. He ran out
of fuel. Is he Here's the thing, Like he would
constantly tell his congregation that like, yeah, okay, fine guys,
the plane's really expensive, but I'm going to keep costs
(40:04):
down by not filling the tank all the way. And also,
think about it, it it gets me closer to God. Well yeah, so, yeah,
the savings of me running around with a low tank.
And then this is what happens right where. I can't
believe he actually did it. I thought he would just
lie to hey, he was telling the truth. His religious
group fell apart soon after his death. His mosque was
(40:25):
converted to a dance hall featuring a one legged dancer
that is like the greatest end cap to his tail. Yeah.
I'm over here trying not to make any inappropriate jokes
about a one legged dancer, but like I do you
keep thinking about the stripper pole and the one legged dancer.
I'm like, I got a lot to say. Queeney served
three years and then was released and then the two
(40:47):
toy she she gets out and she really leans into
her advocacy work on political reform. Bumpy, remember Bumpy dude.
He became the king of Harlem, and it's believes about him.
He went to live with Queeney and spent his twilight
years writing poetry. I love that right. An article from
the nineteen forty three New York Amsterdam News. There's more
(41:10):
than one that year, but whatever said that Queeney went
to the West Indies to visit relatives before going into
seclusion under Bumpy's protection. And Bumpy passed away from a
heart attack in nineteen sixty eight, and then that's what
changed Harlem, to be quite honest, right, one year later,
just shy over seventy third birthday, Queeney passed away. Most
(41:32):
sources said that she died with a lot of money,
was really wealthy. Some say that she died broke in
a Long Island psychiatric facility. I don't want to believe them. Well,
you know, I don't believe she ever had kids, so
I don't know who would be her heir or what
would become of any fortune that she still had. But
she worked really hard to stay out of the spotlight
in her later years, so there's really no telling. There
(41:53):
was a film called Hoodlum made in nineteen ninety seven,
starrying Cecily Tyson as Queeney, Laurence Fishburne is Bumpy, and
Tim Roth as Dutch. Yeah, HBO has a movie about
Queeney in her life coming up a parent. So I
think she's in the Dutch Schultz movie briefly that uh
we're um Dustin Hoffman plays. I think she's maybe bumpy,
(42:15):
just bumpy. But I think there's well and there's also
there's a graphic novel called Queeney, Godmother of Harlem by
um Orley Levy and Elizabeth Columba. A graphic novel. Yeah,
if that just came out, um, just recently. So she's
in our consciousness, she's in our hearts. Queeney a guiding light,
Zaron Elizabeth Burnett? What is your what's your ridiculous takeaway?
(42:40):
My ridiculous takeaway is a green cape in breeches. That's
all I keep thinking about. Dude, that they're like in
jodpurs and a turban and like like some kind of
weird scimitar and he's any spouting nandy Semitic stuff and
people are like, this guy, get out of here. That's
what like, like, why are we have to be saddled
(43:00):
with him? This is why segregation sucks well, and they stuck,
We're stuck with him. The question is why with Queeney?
So you know, one guesses, but Yeah, what is like
the fact that she's so self possessed and independent. And
then it's when she gets out of the game that
she said with him, he's got bumpy writing poetry. So
(43:22):
she's got a soft side, she's got an intellectual side,
she's got a sensitive soul, maybe an artist soul, whatever
you want to call it. She's got she can appreciate
the finer things in life. And then she's got this
Jacknape out there acting like a clown on speed. Well,
and I wonder too if she didn't really have an
opportunity to connect with someone who was more on the
straight and narrow and like also fighting her civil rights fights, right,
(43:46):
because they didn't want to be associated marshal type. Right,
somebody who's self possessed, smart could deal with her. But
she's bad for the reputation exactly. So that's the problem.
And it's like she needs a piano player. Yeah, that's
the women like her in the past. Yeah, a reliable
piano player, because that guy, he's gonna need you, he's
a piano player. He can't live on his own, honestly,
(44:07):
so then he'll be loyal and don't have dud to
make sure he's not out there like you know, catting
around and then yeah, or getting all strung out. Yeah,
there is that concern always with the piano players. Yeah,
with the jazz musician, especially at the jazz cats. But
I still think get yourself a musician, baby, you'd be
all right. That's it. That's all I have for today.
(44:28):
I love her. You can find us online at Ridiculous
Crime on both Twitter for the talking and what I
say Instagram for the gaukin Um. Email us if you
really want to at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com,
download the iHeart app, leave us something called a talk back.
It is a thirty second voicemail with no repercussions. You
(44:48):
like how you always pitched his night Never I know
you never do. Because I want people to leave their messages.
I would like to do. I just entertaining when we
get them, but you know, please send them they are
good and then listen to the next one. Ridiculous Crime
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett's produced and
(45:12):
edited by King Dave Houston. Research is by Ruthless Numbers
runners Marissa Brown and Andrea song Sharp and Tier. The
theme song is by Thomas Lumpy Lee and Travis Grumpy Dutton.
Executive producers are Ben I'll Take seven twenty nine for
a nickel bowling and Noel give Me five eighty one
for a dime Brown Quiet Say It one more time?
(45:40):
We Dequeous. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four
more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Zeron, Do
I know you? No? Oh cool? What's your name? Hey?
You know I'm Elizabeth Utton. Nice to meet you. You
know it's ridiculous. I do Zarin. Oh yes, pet rocks.
That ridiculous, right, Okay, if you just stop, just stop period.
Pet rocks. I've heard I heard about him, So I decided, like,
(00:22):
what is a pet rock? I went and looked it up,
and there's like a lot more to this than I
realized really. So it was this dude named Gary Doll.
He was an advertising executive. He was talking with his
friends at a bar and they were talking about, like
complaining about I gotta walk my dog and get up
so early in the morning. And he's like, oh, you know,
would be the perfect pet of rock. And they were
like yeah whatever, Gary, and say He's like oh yeah.
And he went out and he decided I'm gonna make
(00:43):
pet rocks into a thing. So he did. And so
he decides he gets custom cardboard boxes made. He gets
this little like uh like feeding and care instructions thing
that's filled with like puns like try to teach your
your pet rock to do tricks like sit and stay right,
and then there's difficult ones like come like, don't want
to be able to figure out that one yet maybe
(01:04):
you can that kind of jokes. Right, Well, anyway, it
lasted six months, the whole fat right. But in that
time he sells millions of these. He sells like about
one million of them for about four dollars each in
nineteen seventies dollars, which is like wild to me. He
becomes a millionaire. He then buys a bar in Los Gatos.
He's a local, Oh, I know, California locally. Yeah. Anyway,
(01:27):
he regrets doing it. In nineteen eighty eight, he said,
sometimes I look back and wonder if my life would
have been simple or if I hadn't done it. Oh,
he got things got complicated after that. Oh yeah, I
mean people would like just like sue him about my
pet rock dropped on my foot or I don't know,
he's getting a lot of lawsuits from cranks and waccos. Anyway,
Gary Doll pet rocks. There you go. That is ridiculous.
(01:49):
Do you know what else is ridiculous? No, tell me
a badass woman who stands up to the mob and
black hitler. This is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd
(02:19):
and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine
percent murder free and one ridiculous that we're murder free, right, Yes, okay,
so you're going to day. Well, that basically means that
the crimes that we cover aren't specifically murder, and the
criminals we cover aren't murders. We've both said that we
(02:41):
can't make light of the last day of someone's life
and the horrific events it's around it no good, and
you know that day is also the worst day of
the lives of that person's loved ones, Right, So we
keep it light and I'm going to do that today. Okay,
But here's the thing. The woman I'm going to tell
you about is murder adjacent. We'll say you already said
black Hitler's I'm figuring this one's gonna get wild, little
(03:02):
fid Well. Her crimes are incredible and ridiculous in all
senses of the word, but murder seems to like swirl
around her. Okay, So she didn't really kill anyone. She's
a murder black hole. It's just happening around her. She
fought a guy in self defense and he fell and
hit his head. Okay, but her life is so so,
so much more than that other guy fell on knife
(03:23):
seven times exactly. And she's so fascinating that I figured
I'd use up our one percent on this. Okay, I'm
into it all right. So I'm talking today about Stephanie
Saint Clair. Oh, yes, aka Queenie Saint Clair, aka Madame Queen,
Madame Saint Clair and Queen of the policy rackets. For
some respect on her name. Yes, Stephanie Saint Clair born
(03:45):
on Christmas Eve eighteen ninety seven in Mule, Grandtaire, West
French Indies, you say so. Yes. She was born of
African descent to a single mother named Felicienne, beautiful name,
I know, Felicienne. She made sure that Stephanie went to school,
but then Feliciane got sick, so at fifteen years old,
Stephanie dropped out in order to take care of her mom.
(04:08):
After her mom passed away, Stephanie moved from the West
Indies to Montreal, Moan and she was part most likely
part of the nineteen ten to nineteen eleven Caribbean domestic
scheme that moved domestic workers up to Canada. So one
of the Great North migrations for Canada. Yeah, exactly, and
(04:28):
specifically to Quebec. So from there she immigrates to the
United States. She gets to New York in nineteen twelve.
She speaks English, Spanish, French, and that means she can
like skillfully navigate a lot of neighborhoods and a lot
of situations. Oh yeah, and she's slide in three situations
a bit totally well. So she has this brief relationship
after she gets her with a small time crook named Duke,
(04:49):
and he got caught up in nasty business and he
met a terrible end. But it had she had nothing
to do with it, is not by her hand. So
then she meets this new guy ed she decides to
sell drugs with it. Okay, with some help from ed um,
she makes thirty thousand dollars. Do we know what drugs
she was selling? No, but I'm thinking, what is it
nineteen fifteen, Like I'm figuring like it's cocaine adjacent type
(05:15):
stuff or even yeah, some of the good gauge weed. Yeah,
So she makes them jazz. She makes thirty thousand dollars
after just a few months, okay, and then she decides
I don't need ed right, and Ed finds out and
then they have a disagreement and it didn't end well
because he fell. Oh right, another guy fell bad. That's
(05:36):
the guy that fell. So after this, she's like, I'm
going to hire my own crew of guys I'm hiring
When he fell, did he fall off a building or
like he just felt backwards? Okay, I'll just wonder. You said,
hell backwards. You can fall off a lot of things.
He was clumsy. Yeah. Yeah, So she was like bribing
the cops to leave her alone, and then um, this
new kind of gang that she had. She's got serious income.
(05:57):
So she takes ten thousand dollars of that and she
invests it into a lottery game in Harlem and the
numbers games. Well yeah, it's called policy banking. Yeah, so
it's mix of gambling, investing, and then playing the lottery.
Policy banking wasn't really legal. The thing is, at the times,
bank weren't banks weren't accepting black clients. Yeah, so black
(06:21):
Americans couldn't legally invest their own money in white bank
you'd do, right, And so for many policy banking was
the only option if they wanted to grow their money.
If you didn't have black banks in your area, or
if you or if you'd run a foul the black well,
there's that too. Yeah. So it was common practice for
cosmopolitan black communities and major cities all over the country
(06:42):
to be involved in this numbers game as a means
of investing. Yeah. So there's this man, Stephen Robertson. He
wrote a book called Playing the Numbers, Gambling in Harlem
between the Wars, and he said of policy banking, quote,
it was akin to putting money in the stock market.
Many saw it as an investment, and it was just
as risky as putting money in the stock market back then.
(07:02):
So true, this is how it would work. Players would
place bets, so a nickel was considered a big bet
at the time, on a number between one and nine
hundred ninety nine. The organizers figured out what the winning
numbers were based on two figures, the total daily clearances
among all the member banks and the Federal Reserve Bank
(07:22):
credit balance. So they would combine the second and third
digits from the bank clearings with a third digit from
the Federal Reserve Bank balance. So, per Playing the Numbers
that book, the game worked out as such. The last
Monday before Christmas, nineteen thirty, the clearings were five hundred
eighty nine million dollars and the balance was one hundred
(07:44):
and sixteen million dollars. Hence the winning number was eight
nine six, So it's five eight eighty nine and then six.
Anyone who bet on eight ninety six got to pay out,
So this is going along great. Then in the late thirties,
financial institutions stopped announcing their daily figures, so the policy
bankers they had to figure out, where are we going
(08:06):
to get our numbers. They turned to the mutual totals
of what was paid out on horse races. So Saint Clair,
she's mathematically gifted. This is the numbers that I my
family played. I heard about this exactly. So she's she's
like this math whiz. Her lottery is just raking in cash.
She was such a boss that people started calling her
Queenie in Manhattan and Madame Saint Clair in Harlem. So
(08:30):
the Harlem numbers game, though that's a man's world at
this time. Oh yeah, she was like pretty much the
only woman out there and involved. But she's generating all
these jobs because her game is huge. She's making all
this money, so she's hiring numbers runners and Henchman and Henchman,
but she had like fifty runners at a time hired.
Do you know who worked as a numbers runner for
(08:52):
Queeny when she was a teenager, I don't know. Gordon Parks,
Ella Fitzgerald is not incredible. So she Queenie lives this
absolutely lavish lifestyle. In the twenties, she was making about
twenty thousand dollars a year, and that's kind of like
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars today. That's not bad
at a nineteen thirties there's this journalist who figured out
(09:14):
that Queeney was worth probably around five hundred thousand dollars,
so that's like eleven million dollars today. She owned property
and she was just like building wealth the only way
that she could. She lived in an apartment on four
o nine Edgecomb Avenue that's in sugar Hill, looking over
what is now Jackie Robinson Park. Yes, couple blocks from
the Harlem River. There were a lot of esteemed members
(09:37):
of the Harlem community living in this same building. Callaway
the painter Aaron Douglas, future Supreme Court justice. They're a
good night, Marshal Nice Duke Gellington in this mix web. So,
Katherine Butler Jones was a neighbor of hers, and she
remembers seeing Queeney in the halls. This is what she said,
(09:58):
Madam Stephanie Saint Clair raising through the lobby with her
fur coat dramatically flowing behind her. She had a mystical
aura about her, and she wore exotic dresses with a
colorful turban wrapped around her head. Yeah. So she's just
like floating through the goddess. Yeah. So she she donated
to organizations that were focused on racial progress, and voting
(10:20):
rights was a big thing for her. She regularly paid
for ads to involved in suffragist movements. Essentially well at
this point in the thirties, I backed it up to you.
I'm sorry, but I mean before I'm sure. And so
she paid for ads in local papers because she wanted
to educate the community on their legal rights. Here's something
that she put in the Amsterdam News. Quote to the
(10:42):
members of my race, and that's in all caps. If
officers meet you on the street and suspect you of anything,
do not let them search you on the street, or
do not let them take you in any hallway to
be searched. If the police should ring your doorbell and
you open your door, refuse to let them search your
house unless they show you a search warrant. So it's
just these are our basic civil rights as Americans, something
(11:03):
that all of us should know. And at people because
didn't know, presume that if a cop is asking you questions,
that the best thing to do is to try to
exculpate yourself and tell them why you're in a right
and we're the best thing to do is not say
anything exactly everybody, And so she's wanting them to have
the same information as everybody else. I don't act like
a perp, right, So she was. She spoke out against
(11:24):
police brutality against the black community, and she filed complaints
about police harassment with local authorities. Um, I think it's
important to stop and acknowledge how dangerous that was for her.
Oh right, so the New York police she is brave
like to go ahead and bad racist at this time. Well,
of course nothing came of her complaints, right, probably not?
So what does she do? She ran more ads in
(11:45):
Harlem papers accusing senior officers of corruption. She just keeps
upping the antiamus. Here's this is from the nineteen, nineteen
twenty nine edition of the Amsterdam News quote, I don't
understand how these police who are supposed to be the
protection of the people can make raids for so called
policy slips when these same men are participants of the
(12:06):
game themselves. So she's calling out, look, you're my customers,
and then you turn around, you're going to raid me out,
thinks Okay, I love how she's just constantly taking out
ads in the papers. That's her bulletin board. So this
time though, when she calls out her own customers, she
gets a response. She got arrested. They came after her
(12:26):
and she wound up doing eight months in a workhouse
because of that. Would Queenie take this lying down? But no, no,
of course not. So she stayed cool. And then she
went and testified to the Seabury Commission, which was a
joint legislative committee formed by the New York legislature, And
that was because the governor FDR he had this probe
(12:48):
into corruption in New York City. So she tells them
all about the kickbacks that she paid to police officers.
She tells them all about the cops who played the
Harlem numbers games. This time she gets results. More than
a dozen officers were fired. Yeah, this is a big deal.
This is part of how he made his name exactly.
So it wasn't just crooked cops and politicians that she
(13:08):
aired out in her newspaper ads. If men came courting
and she wasn't interested, she'd run ads. Oh yeah, this
is what she quote to whom it may concern. I
have received letters and telephone messages from men which have
annoyed me very much, and I take this occasion to
ask them publicly to please not annoy me. I, Mademoiselle
(13:32):
Saint clair Am, not looking for a husband or a sweetheart.
If you do not stop annoying me, I shall publish
their names and letters in the newspaper. And you know
who you are. Right. I love how everything she does
is from this really confident and serene place. She's unflappable.
She's definitely a queen. Yeah, she has definitely earned the name.
So prohibition comes and goes, the Harlem numbers game just
(13:57):
keeps cooking along. Oh yeah, it doesn't mean anything, but
another challenge is at hand. Dude, Harlem's number game runs
until like the seventies. No, it just keeps going. But
here's this thing pro lottery basically, yeah, pretty much, prohibition ends.
It had been big business for a lot of people,
a lot of people like dancers and musicians. People you're
(14:18):
not thinking, you're not just people were bootleggers, but everybody
in the work the club. But when you look at
the bootleggers, they have to find a new source of revenue.
When we come back, I'll tell you who moved where
and how and why? Nice? All right, we're back. Hey,
(14:52):
look at us, Say Elizabeth, what you do when we've
left off. Let me give you a little recap. Queenie
Saint Clair, she was ruling the policy bank numbers game,
had worked hard for people in her community. She also
had now had a principal, Lieutenant Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson Bumpy.
He was a culture gentleman, but he was also a badass. Yeah,
(15:15):
oh yes he is. He They called him Bumpy because
he had a large bone on his forehead. Yeah. So
he and Queeney they're basically running her element at this point.
Oh yes, they're raking in the dough. They're living these
really comfortable lifestyles. Prohibitions coming going has no effect. Now
are they partners? Were member business like seers like, we
(15:37):
both get it exactly. I like this. She got some
on her level totally. So prohibition comes to an end.
Other criminal elements are losing money. No more illicit hooch
to sell. As such, this means that there's a loss
of the cash cow for both the Jewish and Italian
crime families in New York, among among other diversification. They
(16:00):
make a move on the Harlem gambling scene. Oh yes,
they did so, as you said, Bronx mob boss Arthur
dutch Schultz Flagenheimer. Oh yeah, he kicked it off. Yeah,
he's the one. He gave the black and brown communities
in Harlem two options, give up their numbers business to
him or kind of in on the action. Those are
the choices. So dutch Schultz, he has high powered politicians
(16:24):
on his payroll, everybody, he had James Pines, leader of
Tammany Hall, everybody on his parents. And he'd also beat
and kill anyone who didn't go along with his protection scheme. Yeah,
he was ruthless totally. So this led New York State
Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey. And he was smart as hell too.
I mean, he wasn't one of those like twitchy mobsters.
This is somebody who was calculating cold and would have
(16:44):
been an amazing business man legitimately well, Thomas Dewey says
that he's public enemy number one because he was the
guy he ran. Now. Queeney, though, she's as brave and
as steadfast as ever, even when faced with Dutch Schultz,
she said, quote, I'm not a f of Dutch Schultz
or any other living man. He'll never touch me. I
will kill Schultz if he sets foot in Harlem. He's
(17:06):
a rat. The policy game is my game. Wow, that's
a huge statement to him tending to kill Dutch, So
that's not even it. So then Queeney and Bumpy they
send a message to Dutch by attacking business storefronts that
ran his own betting operations. They all on the attack. Queeney,
what else did she do? She took to the papers again,
(17:28):
so she started running ads encouraging the people of Harlem
to quote play black. So she's like she wanted gamblers
to only use black owned and controlled operations, right, So
she and Bumpy then they tip off the police about
Schultz's illegal activities. They raid Schultz's house, more than a
dozen of his men get arrested. They seize the equivalent
(17:50):
of about twelve million in cash today. Snap, what does
dutch Schultz do? He retaliates, Oh, violently. I imagine he
calls Queene at her own home and threatens her, and
that of course didn't work. He then kidnapped and murdered
her men. So there's there's our one person, some of
our one percon Yes, and she wouldn't budge. She's like
no by her men. Do you mean her henchman? Yeah?
(18:13):
So then dutch Schultz puts a hit out on Queenie. Okay,
this is what she had to say about it. We
know who who he hired for. No, she said she
hid in a cellar, quote while the super a friend
of mine, covered me with coal. So she knew that
the killer was coming in the building. Went to the cellar.
Super the superintendent of the building covers her with coal
(18:34):
to hide. Wow. Another time, Yeah, another time Schultz sent
a henchman to intimidate her. But you know Queeny's going
to Queenie. Yes, So she got the jump on him.
She pushed him into a closet, locked him in, and
then ordered her bodyguards to quote take care of him.
So that's another part of our one persons. Well, I
(18:54):
don't know for certain though, that she meant what we
all think she meant, because like maybe she understood that
hurt people hurt people, and that she wanted her men
to have an encounter therapy session with the guy, like
nurture him into a kinder state, lots of cozy blankets
and comfort for you, take care of him, take care
of him, feel good. Well anyway, so Duch shelts, he's
(19:15):
like bringing way too much danger and way too much
police attention and death. Why can't Queeny do her thing
in peace? That's what I wanted. She picked a fight
with mad touch shots. Well, she knew what she had
to do. She went legit she did. She passed the
crown to Bumpy, and she said, you're now in charge
(19:36):
of my entire criminal enterprise, and she trusted him. Yeah,
but what did Bumpy do? Well, Bumpy turned around and
made a deal with who Luck. So Lucky took over
Schultz's spots with a percentage going to Bumpy, and the
Italians now had to go through Bumpy if they had
any problems in Harlem. And that was the safest option
(19:59):
for Bumpy. That is the absolute smasting for good done. Yep,
so lucky Luciano. He felt like all of Dutch Schultz's
craziness was damaging the entire Cosin Nostra in New York.
In nineteen thirty five, he went to the commission the
bosses of the Five Families, and he had a hit
put on Shoults. He pretty much it helped form the commission.
I mean Frank Costello. There's a bunch of people, but
(20:20):
he's like a major player, the one who he goes
to them. He's like, Schultz is a problem. Put a
hit on him, he asks for it, he gets it.
Um Schultz. He gets sprayed with bullets while on the
toilet at the Palace chop House in Newark, New Jersey,
and he gets taken to the hospital. Queen, he had
nothing to do with the shooting. Can I just say
that she's not part there? However, she wasn't mourning the guy.
(20:44):
So when she found out, she wired a telegram to
his deathbed and this is what it said, Yes, this
is what it said, as ye's so, so shall ye
reap Galai six seven on that one? That's amazing And
she signed it Madame Queen of Policy. She's stone cold
(21:09):
on top this this act made the papers. The pers
sending the te made the paper. How did the nurses tell?
I guess Dutch Shultz. He died on October twenty fourth,
nineteen thirty five, one day after the shooting. I suppose
reaping when he had sown. Oh yeah. So after this,
Queenie eventually led a man into her life. She found
a partner and a man named sufi Abdul Hamid or
(21:32):
Eugene Brown. Oh okay. Before he moved to New York,
he'd been living in Chicago, calling himself Bishop Conshunkin, a
Buddhist cleric. Okay, so he's not like Noble drew Alie.
I thought he's like Black Moorish. Oh yeah, he is,
oh okay. So he was the eventual leader of an
Islamic Buddhist cult. He's a black separatist. Yes, and he
used to tell people that he was born in the
(21:54):
shadows of the Egyptian Pyramids. I guess of then, yeah,
he wanted to make a move. Of course, of course
he did. So he goes to Queeny and he asks
for money fund my dream project. We're in the in
the forties at this point, thirties okay, and she says no.
But they kept in contact okay. And then one night
(22:15):
he declared his love and said will you marry me?
And she said give me three days to think it over. Well,
they really stayed in content, huh. And then after three
days she goes, yep, I'll marry you. She accepts. What
so in nineteen thirty six they get married. What's the scam?
What's the angle? Queenie? But not legally so Hamide. He
draws up a contract that binds their mutual assets as
(22:39):
well as them their persons for ninety nine years. This
is some weird like, I don't trust a man who
wants to tign a content. And this also made it
into the papers, this whole union right. There was a
particularly barbed account of the marriage in a paper called
The New York Age. Familiar with it? Yeah, I know
that it exists. It's a prominant black paper. At the time.
(23:03):
They kind of roast Hamide, making fun of his outfit.
This is what how they described his clothes. Quote. His
perennial garb, in addition to his turban, comprises a green
cape and a shirt, knee breeches and writing booths. Wait
knee breeches and a cape. Dudes walk around Harlem and
knee breaches. He's like his own special superhero. They took
digs at him, claiming to be oh, and they like
(23:27):
pointed out his criminal history. And then they really went
hard at Queeney really because this is what they said.
They said they didn't believe her claims that dutch Schultz
wanted to kill her. This is what it said. Quote.
It was this writer's opinion throughout the publicity seekers rantings
that it was beneath dutch Schultz's dignity to waste valuable
ammunition to silence her. Sounds like some black intellectuals jealous. Well,
(23:49):
it was known as the distinguished Black newspaper of opinion. Yeah,
they're not gonna celebrate criminals, but the whole high minded
like oh and then also with the cutting dismissing part,
like so they're also lifting him up at the same time,
like he wouldn't have busy business with you. That's the
come on now, So anyway, go back to your Claude
McKay poetry. Back up. So, anyway, all of Queenie's resources
(24:13):
were bound to Hamide. Thanks to this contract, ten grand
was placed in a trust of his was placed in
a trust for her. Oh he does have something, well,
I don't know who's ten grand wasn't really his. The
document though, wasn't legally binding, but he said it was
binding under Sharia law. What the he is a Muslim
(24:34):
Buddhist who follows Sharia law of his own making. Yeah, okay,
you just want to keep ending. Yeah, we're on the
same green It gets so much better slash words. The
contract also had a clause though, that the couple had
a year to figure out if this relationship would actually work.
If it didn't, they would split and the contract would
be avoided. So there was an annulment clause. Kind Yeah, essentially,
(24:57):
if they feel it was it was working after a year,
then they would get married for real in the eyes
of the US government. Oh they doubled down. Yeah, so
so Hamide, he's setting off alarm bells for you, a
million of them. He should rightly so, like a china
shop he had. He had a nickname. Yeah, it's a
bad one. Yeah, let me set this up for you.
(25:18):
A historian named Murray Friedman wrote a book called What
Went Wrong The Creation and Collapse of the Black Jewish Alliance.
In it, he talks about how Hamide had quote courted
the German American booned and and the Nazi like Christian Front. Yeah,
the German American booned from thirty late thirties. Yeah, it's
(25:39):
all coming together, chanting the marching. Amide was a strong
advocate for hiring of black employees. That's great, that's valid, sure,
but he created a negative to balance out that positive
by orchestrating violent boycotts against Jewish owned and Italian and Greek.
That's why doesn't matter. There's also his fashion choices. He
liked to wear out fits that incorporated Nazi style military
(26:02):
shirts big Hugo boss fan, and he wore a dagger
in his belt get out and he required cape, the
gold lined cape. And he also wore a purple turban. Yeah,
he looks unhinged in picture. Why would Queen he go
for this? Well, and also that doesn't make sense, what
is she doing? His anti Semitic hate speech was off
(26:26):
the charts, super offensive, super dangerous, and as such, he
was known throughout the community as Black Hitler. So wait
a minute, if you're known as Black Hitler in the thirties,
the third before, when Hitler was first making a name
from the hibster of Hitler's. He's like, oh, you haven't
heard about him yet. Not everyone knows this guy coming up,
(26:46):
and I'm the black hymn so horrible, I mean, what
the hell? Bro like? Well, and he had a labor union,
of course, it went through name changes. First it was
called the Negro Industrial and Clerical Alliance, Then it was
the Afro American Federation of Labor. Adam Clayton Powell what
the first African American to be elected to Congress from
New York. He worked with him for a short time
(27:07):
in labor protests store boycotts. Powell dipped out when this
is what's interesting, when Himid went from just targeting whites
and Jews to going after light skinned black people like himself.
That's where he drew the line. Adam to talk. So
he has this labor union, well, rival black labor unions
didn't like his labor bet not. He would collect these
(27:28):
one dollar dues from each unemployed black worker who wanted
a job at a store before he'd start a pressure
campaign to get him hired. But the campaign is not falling.
He's getting really wealthy off of this, so he's charging
people money to have does it basically say if you
give me this dollar, I'll go put pressure on these
people to hire you. And they're like, all right, bet,
and he's doing it for like a lot of people,
and it was like they only have so many spots,
(27:50):
and he's like, look, I we're gonna get you a
job dollar a week. I'll go and puts costume and
black Hid are going to get it done. So one
of his critics was Hammy Snipes. Okay it was a
political activist and a former member of Marcus Garvey's Universal
Negro Improvement Association in African Communities League. Snipes was critical
(28:11):
of Hamid and his tactics, and Hamid didn't like that.
So in October nineteen thirty six, Snipes is giving this speech,
He's calling for equal pay for African American members of
the meat cutters union. Hamid and his buddy Alan McAlpine
they attacked Snipes and they stabbed him in the arms. Oh,
physically attacktives. Yeah yeah, I thought you were saying like rhetorically, no, no,
(28:33):
this is where they like start stepping across lines. Snipes
gets ten stitches and the growing support of the community.
So Hamide he gets twenty days in prison and then
is eventually barred from picketing. That's it. So in response,
he's like, fine, you won't let me pick it. I'm
going to start a mosque, the Universal Holy Temple of Tranquility.
(28:54):
So he's like one of the first black Muslims in
this country, but he wasn't a so seated with Nation
of Islam. Yeah, I assuming he's basically a rival of
Noble drew a Lee, same time, same area, and he's
coming up with his version of like a back to
Africa spiritual movement. Right, he's when Marcus Garvey's going to
try to get you there, I'm going to try to
get your spirit there exactly exactly. So it was very
(29:16):
It was a heady man. He starts calling himself a bishop,
which okay, of course made the funny hat. He gets
a brand new nickname. He's no longer a black Hitler,
black miter, black moftie. I was close so August in
August nineteen thirty seven, he opened his organization to Jewish members.
So wait, now he's cool. Now he's with the chosen
(29:37):
people because he needs what from them? Money? I guess,
I don't know. He'll take anyone with money. I would suppose.
I don't know. So he's doing his thing, he's running
his mosque and he's running around on Queeney. Yeah, let's
take a break. Let's let's let's work on this. Oh
my god, let's get calm down. Let's listen to some
smooth ads. Just cool out. When we get back, I'll
(30:00):
tell you what happens when you cross Queenie. Hey's Aaron
(30:24):
a good good Okay, those commercials are really smarting. No. Right,
So when we left off Queene Saint Clair, she'd married
Black Hitler. Yes, he's a black separatist general slees Ball,
anti Semit con man philandrap embarrassment to her and the race. Yes.
Three ten pm on January eighteenth, nineteen thirty eight, Hamid
Black Hitler. He's heading out of his apartment on three
(30:46):
O nine West one hundred and twenty fifth Street in Harlem.
This is thirty eight before. I'm just trying to find
the year. Yeah, and he's on his way to go
see his lawyer and he runs into Queeny in the
third floor hallway. Zaren close you? Oh yeah, I want
you to picture it. You're on foot and you've just
(31:07):
left the Apollo theater. You're in charge of booking acts there.
You're walking down West one hundred and twenty fifth Street
on a quick break before you head back to work.
You want to get some air, maybe stop in somewhere
for an egg cream. There's a great fountain not too
far up the street. You're whistling some Mozart as you walk.
As you pass the five story apartment building on three
O nine West twenty fifth, you decide to poke your
(31:30):
head in and say hi to your friend, Clarence Dade.
He's the elevator operator there. He loves Mozart, and you
just got a bunch of records from Europe that you
want to share with him. A few weeks ago, on Christmas,
the two of you had listened to Arturo Tuscanini conduct
the NBC Symphony Orchestra on US radio for the first time. Now,
it was mostly Vivaldi, whom no one seemed to really
(31:52):
play at the time, but there was a lot of
Mozart and Brahms. And you've been whistling ever since. I'm
you are You step into the lobby, you Greek Clarence.
You're just about to tell him about the records when
a shot rings out, then another, then another. Clarence looks stunned.
The two of you race up the stairs, listening at
each landing to see if that's where the shot originated.
You reach the third floor landing and Clarence yaged the
(32:14):
door open. You stay in stairwell in case you have
to run back down for help. You peek into the
hall and you see Clarence standing over a large man
who's sprawled on the floor. A well dressed woman stands
beside them. That's Queenie Saint Clair. You think to yourself.
A few doors down a neighbor woman had her head
it poked out the door. Is he okay? Asked that
resident Nettie Roach. She's panicked. He's alive, replies Clarence Zarin.
(32:39):
Run down to the lobby and call for help. It
You dash down the stairs in elegant Zaren style, speed
lifting yourself off the banisters in like early Parkour arches
and leaps. You grab the phone and you hit the
receiver for the operator. Queeny Saint Clair just shot Black Hiller.
You're about to tell the operator that it served him right,
but you keep that to yourself. The police arrived. Queeney's arrested,
(33:01):
Black Hitler lived, So there's no one percent involved here, Queenie.
She gave interviews in the weeks leading up to the trial.
She posed for photographs from her room in the women's
detention prison in Manhattan, as well as photos at the
one twenty third Street police station. So she's just making
an event of it. At the trial, Queeney testified that
(33:23):
Hamid was a gambler, that he was involved in business
ventures that went nowhere, wiped out all his cash, and
he was just constantly asking her for money. What really
ground her gears though, was that Hamid had a mistress.
She was a Jamaican fortune teller named Dorothy Matthews who
went by the name Fu Fundam. Yeah, Fu fu Ttam
(33:47):
fo fum. Queeney accused Fundam and Hamid of trying to
start businesses using her money. What was one of the
ventures selling manure. Queeney also said that they tried to
poison her and it wasn't a killer, but to gain
her trust by quote unquote caring for her in her state. Yeah,
and then she would like they would try and get
(34:08):
her to give them loans when she was all dazed. Yeah,
So talking about that confrontation in the hallway. This is
what Queeny said. Quote, I didn't want to kill him.
I only wanted to scare him. If I killed him,
I would have died. So she loves him. Oh okay, yeah,
I got you now. It took me a second. But
what I think it was, I meant no, I don't know,
(34:35):
so I'm just wondering, Queeny says. Queeny says that the
gun is a means right. Quote. When I tried to
grab the gun from him, he threw me against the
wall and bit my finger. It was during the struggle
to gain possession of the gun to keep him from
killing me that it went off three times. Yeah. She
(34:57):
holds up her hand. She's got her fingers wrapt in
white tape. She slowly unwraps the tape and shows the
jury her wounds from where he bitter black hitler bit
my finger. And then they have this nurse Rosa Glover,
she's from the detention center. She comes and she verifies, yeah,
those are teeth marks on her hand. Um, Nettie Roach
(35:19):
that neighbor that you saw in the hall She backs
up Queeney's testimony. She says, look, I looked out Hamid's
holding the gun and said I'll shoot you to Queenie.
So that's what the neighbor sees. Queenie's lawyer gets Hamide
to admit that his real name is Eugene Brown and
that he was from Philadelphia, like h Rat Brown's dad,
I think. So he admitted that Dorothy Matthew's aka Fo Fatam,
(35:44):
Buttim was his mistress. Okay, so he confesses to that.
Queenie's attorney he get he got one hundred dollars fine.
When he tried to push Hamid to talk about how
he got the nickname black Hitler. Do you imagine him
like in court, like her name's wrap up, like who
here would go back in time and kill baby black Hitler?
(36:04):
Do you think he had like the dash L at
the end of his name. Oh yeah, well that you
know that's black mors, So he probably didn't. He probably
had dash m because he wanted to be distinct. He's
the next So the lawyer right is like, tell us
how why they call you black Hitler? They just like
knock it off. That's immaterial, and now you gotta pay
(36:24):
one hundred dollars fine because you won't let it go.
Because he wouldn't stop with the black lighter. I know. Um,
so what did Hamid say? He claimed that Queeney shot
him on site three times, beimming. He said that the
first shot singed his mustache and chipped his teeth. The
second one chipped his teeth. Uh was she fired a
(36:45):
twenty two? The second one grazed his arm and burned
his coat. What the third bullet lodged in a wall?
So you're pal Clarence. He testified too. He said that
he heard a boom and then he heard hamide yell
I am shot. He said that he heard Queeney say
as he approached, he's lying. He was shooting at me. So, Clarence,
(37:08):
here's the whole conversation. The patrolman who made the arrest
also testified. His name is Frederick Damro. No he was
called to the stand by the prosecution. Damro said he
questioned Queeny right after the shooting. He asked her, why
did you shoot your husband? She replied, I got tired
of paying. Queeny denied ever speaking to him or any
(37:29):
police staff in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. That
lines up with her standard practice. Right. It should be noted, though,
six months after the trial damro. He gets indicted for
conspiracy and grand larceny for setting up and shaking down
a Hungarian upholstery manufacturer. No a dirty New York century.
His word isn't really worth much, and his actions lined
(37:51):
up with what Queeney had been saying her whole life. Anyway.
Unfortunately for Queeny, a ballistic specialist testified and said the
gun had to be at least eighteen inches away from
Hamid when it went off, so she plt her in
a tussle. She pulled her on back. There was no
gunshot residue on his clothing. He moved fast, so much
for the he was shooting at me defense. The prosecution
(38:12):
rests that's it. It took the jury three hours to
deliver their verdicts. Also not good. Yeah, they found her
guilty of possession of a deadly weapon and first degree assault.
She gets sentenced to two to ten years in state
prison for women in Bedford Hills, New York. The judge
concluded a sentencing by saying, quote, this woman has been
living by her wits all of her life. She has
(38:35):
a bad temper and must learn that she can't go
around shooting in other people. He starts out like it's
a compliment, and then if he gets to like finger Wagon,
they all stop with your pop. Wait, this is America, man,
this is what we do. So what were her last
words as she left the courthouse, You can eat, According
to journalist Sumitra Nadu quote. One news source claimed she
(39:00):
after her infamously sinister laugh and merrily thanked the judge.
Another wrote that she was escorted out of the room,
stealing a baleful glance at McVeigh and hissing q louse.
One article claimed she said, with dramatic a plum quote,
he'd done me wrong and he'll get his just desserts.
(39:20):
Yet another wrote that she simply blew a kiss. I
like that one. I bet she was asking Bumpy, you
know this man's address, get lucky a home visit? Well,
so me. Less than a year later, he's flying his
private plane. This guy du well, he crashed it on
(39:41):
Long Island after running out of fuel and he died.
Are you happy Zarin? And then in all the papers
it was like he and his white secretary. So yeah,
she lived. He he didn't make it. He ran out
of fuel. Is he Here's the thing, Like he would
constantly tell his congregation that like, yeah, okay, fine guys,
the plane's really expensive, but I'm going to keep costs
(40:04):
down by not filling the tank all the way. And also,
think about it, it it gets me closer to God. Well yeah, so, yeah,
the savings of me running around with a low tank.
And then this is what happens right where. I can't
believe he actually did it. I thought he would just
lie to hey, he was telling the truth. His religious
group fell apart soon after his death. His mosque was
(40:25):
converted to a dance hall featuring a one legged dancer
that is like the greatest end cap to his tail. Yeah.
I'm over here trying not to make any inappropriate jokes
about a one legged dancer, but like I do you
keep thinking about the stripper pole and the one legged dancer.
I'm like, I got a lot to say. Queeney served
three years and then was released and then the two
(40:47):
toy she she gets out and she really leans into
her advocacy work on political reform. Bumpy, remember Bumpy dude.
He became the king of Harlem, and it's believes about him.
He went to live with Queeney and spent his twilight
years writing poetry. I love that right. An article from
the nineteen forty three New York Amsterdam News. There's more
(41:10):
than one that year, but whatever said that Queeney went
to the West Indies to visit relatives before going into
seclusion under Bumpy's protection. And Bumpy passed away from a
heart attack in nineteen sixty eight, and then that's what
changed Harlem, to be quite honest, right, one year later,
just shy over seventy third birthday, Queeney passed away. Most
(41:32):
sources said that she died with a lot of money,
was really wealthy. Some say that she died broke in
a Long Island psychiatric facility. I don't want to believe them. Well,
you know, I don't believe she ever had kids, so
I don't know who would be her heir or what
would become of any fortune that she still had. But
she worked really hard to stay out of the spotlight
in her later years, so there's really no telling. There
(41:53):
was a film called Hoodlum made in nineteen ninety seven,
starrying Cecily Tyson as Queeney, Laurence Fishburne is Bumpy, and
Tim Roth as Dutch. Yeah, HBO has a movie about
Queeney in her life coming up a parent. So I
think she's in the Dutch Schultz movie briefly that uh
we're um Dustin Hoffman plays. I think she's maybe bumpy,
(42:15):
just bumpy. But I think there's well and there's also
there's a graphic novel called Queeney, Godmother of Harlem by
um Orley Levy and Elizabeth Columba. A graphic novel. Yeah,
if that just came out, um, just recently. So she's
in our consciousness, she's in our hearts. Queeney a guiding light,
Zaron Elizabeth Burnett? What is your what's your ridiculous takeaway?
(42:40):
My ridiculous takeaway is a green cape in breeches. That's
all I keep thinking about. Dude, that they're like in
jodpurs and a turban and like like some kind of
weird scimitar and he's any spouting nandy Semitic stuff and
people are like, this guy, get out of here. That's
what like, like, why are we have to be saddled
(43:00):
with him? This is why segregation sucks well, and they stuck,
We're stuck with him. The question is why with Queeney?
So you know, one guesses, but Yeah, what is like
the fact that she's so self possessed and independent. And
then it's when she gets out of the game that
she said with him, he's got bumpy writing poetry. So
(43:22):
she's got a soft side, she's got an intellectual side,
she's got a sensitive soul, maybe an artist soul, whatever
you want to call it. She's got she can appreciate
the finer things in life. And then she's got this
Jacknape out there acting like a clown on speed. Well,
and I wonder too if she didn't really have an
opportunity to connect with someone who was more on the
straight and narrow and like also fighting her civil rights fights, right,
(43:46):
because they didn't want to be associated marshal type. Right,
somebody who's self possessed, smart could deal with her. But
she's bad for the reputation exactly. So that's the problem.
And it's like she needs a piano player. Yeah, that's
the women like her in the past. Yeah, a reliable
piano player, because that guy, he's gonna need you, he's
a piano player. He can't live on his own, honestly,
(44:07):
so then he'll be loyal and don't have dud to
make sure he's not out there like you know, catting
around and then yeah, or getting all strung out. Yeah,
there is that concern always with the piano players. Yeah,
with the jazz musician, especially at the jazz cats. But
I still think get yourself a musician, baby, you'd be
all right. That's it. That's all I have for today.
(44:28):
I love her. You can find us online at Ridiculous
Crime on both Twitter for the talking and what I
say Instagram for the gaukin Um. Email us if you
really want to at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com,
download the iHeart app, leave us something called a talk back.
It is a thirty second voicemail with no repercussions. You
(44:48):
like how you always pitched his night Never I know
you never do. Because I want people to leave their messages.
I would like to do. I just entertaining when we
get them, but you know, please send them they are
good and then listen to the next one. Ridiculous Crime
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett's produced and
(45:12):
edited by King Dave Houston. Research is by Ruthless Numbers
runners Marissa Brown and Andrea song Sharp and Tier. The
theme song is by Thomas Lumpy Lee and Travis Grumpy Dutton.
Executive producers are Ben I'll Take seven twenty nine for
a nickel bowling and Noel give Me five eighty one
for a dime Brown Quiet Say It one more time?
(45:40):
We Dequeous. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four
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Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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