Hoodlum And The Cotton Club Both Used Stephanie St. Clair — Neither Told Her Story

Before Bumpy Johnson became a Hollywood legend, he worked for a woman. Stephanie St. Clair — "Madame Queen" — ran one of the biggest numbers banks in 1920s and '30s Harlem, and Bumpy was her enforcer. This documentary tells the real story of the Harlem numbers racket: how St. Clair built her policy empire, how she and Bumpy fought Dutch Schultz when he tried to take it over, and how films like The Cotton Club (1984) and Hoodlum (1997) turned Bumpy into the star while the Queen faded into the background. Using newspaper archives, court records and historical accounts, we separate the movie version from what actually happened in the Harlem underworld. Subscribe to Bloody Reports for new true crime documentaries every week. #TrueCrime #BlackHistory #HarlemHistory