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Madam C.J. Walker, Beyond the Beauty Shop
We know the main story
of Sarah Breedlove, as known as Madam C.J. Walker, the first black
female millionaire. Her products were established in the early 1900s and
are still being sold today. But Walker was not just an inventor of
hair-growing products, but a hands-on activist who used her influence to
fight the White House against lynching and slavery. Born in Delta,
Louisiana in 1867, Breedlove was an orphan by age seven who fled from a
cotton plantation and married at 14 in order to get away from her
abusive brother-in-law. With a child in tow, she moved to St. Louis
after her husband died and lived with brothers, who were barbers and
taught her the business. Working for $1.50 per day, she used her money
to raise and educate her daughter. Around 1890, Breedlove suffered a
scalp ailment and tried various products to keep her from losing hair.
Years later, after she had moved to Denver to work in sales for Annie
Malone, she changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker. It was then that she
literally lived her dream and began inventing products for hair growth.
By 1910, Walker had built the largest manufacturing company in the
country, which housed her second training school and salon. While
working and training students, she would give contributions like $1,000
to the Indiana colored YMCA. When the NAACP took on anti-lynching work,
Walker issued a check for $5,000. Then in 1917, three dozen black people were
killed by an angry white mob in East St. Louis, Illinois. Walker
immediately joined civic leaders and left for the White House to protest
lynching. That same year, she preached a message of equality at the
Madam C.J. Walker Hair Culturists Union of America convention in
Philadelphia, the largest gathering of black businesswoman at the time.
Madam C.J. Walker died in 1919 at her mansion, Villa Lewaro, in
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. She left her major estate to her only
daughter, Lelia. Her home still stands and is privately owned.
By: Erica Taylor, The Tom Joyner Morning Show