A Black woman in history who gets greatly overlooked is Madame C.J. Walker. Most people have never even heard her name. Here is the story of this strong, independent, and intelligent woman:
Madame C.J. Walker was born in Louisiana on a cotton plantation. Her original name was Sarah Breedlove. She was the first of her five siblings to be born free. Her parents died when she was 7 and she was sent to live with her older sister. Walker began working at an exceedingly young age picking cotton and doing housework.
C.J. Walker escaped her home after suffering abuse by her brother-in-law, married, and gave birth to a baby girl named A’Lelia. Soon after marrying, Walker’s husband died and she moved once again with her daughter. After obtaining a job as a washerwoman that paid a whopping $1.50 a day, she soon met her second husband, Charles Walker.
By 1905, she had moved to Colorado to pursue a career in the hair care business. She was hired by an entrepreneur as a commission agent. Her husband helped her advertise her hair care products which were specifically for African Americans. This is when she began going by the prestigious “Madame C.J. Walker”. She and her husband started traveling all over to promote C.J.’s product.
When C.J. had made enough money, she opened her own beauty school and copyrighted her business. It was named “The Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company”. She promoted innovation and education among African Americans through clubs and conventions. She donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), nursing homes for Black individuals, and the National Conference on Lynching. She fought for civil rights and put her money where her mouth was.
Madame C.J. Walker had quickly become, in today’s terms, a millionaire. She overcame the obstacles of being a woman entrepreneur in the early 1900s but also those of being a Black woman. She unfortunately passed away at the young age of 51 from hypertension in 1919, but her legacy continues to live on. Her hair care products are still being sold and can be found under the name “Madame C.J. Walker Beauty Culture” at Sephora.
If you want to learn more about this amazing woman, watch the Netflix series Self Made. Octavia Walters does a magnificent job of portraying Walker.