By La’Niya Jones
Madam C.J. Walker is a name that many people don’t know, but she changed the world for African American women.
Originally named Sarah Breedlove, she was born on Dec. 23, 1867, on a plantation in Delta, Louisiana. She was an orphan at seven, lived with her older sister, and worked in a cotton field. At the age of 14, she married Moses McWilliams to escape her abusive brother-in-law.
Sadly, in 1887, her husband died and she was left a single parent to a two-year-old daughter, A’Lelia. Life was not easy, and in 1889, Walker moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to get away from poverty. She worked as a laundress and cook. She met many inspirational black women and men at the African Methodist Episcopal Church who left a big mark on her life.
Things still were not looking up for Walker; she was struggling financially, losing hair, and feeling every ache in her body from physical labor.
Then the year 1904 came. That year she not only started to use “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower” by Annie Turbo Malone, but she was also able to find a job working as a sales agent for Malone.
During this time, she experimented with many formulas to try and help her scalp disorder, which caused her to lose most of her hair. In 1905, she moved to Denver, Colorado, and married Charles Joseph Walker. At this time she changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker.
In Denver, she worked as a cook for a pharmacist where she learned basic chemistry. This allowed her to make some of her hair products.
That same year, she founded her own business with just $1.25 and began selling “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.” This was a scalp conditioner and healing treatment that worked to fix and strengthen the scalp.
Walker even created her own method called the “Walker system,” which included preparing the scalp, lotions, and iron combs. She paid attention to the health of the women she would be selling her products to.
To get momentum and an audience behind her, Walker traveled throughout the South and Southeast going door to door for about a year and a half. During this time, she also demonstrated her product in churches and worked on different marketing and selling strategies. Her husband, Charles, also helped her with advertising and helped her set up a mail-order business. Sadly, with the rapid growth of the business, they both grew apart before divorcing.
In 1908, she moved her business to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There she opened a beauty school called Lelia College, where she trained “Walker hair culturists.” In 1910, she settled in Indianapolis, leaving the school to her daughter, and built a factory for her Walker Manufacturing Company. On top of that, she also opened a hair and manicure salon and another school.
With business booming, Walker was getting national attention, especially after giving $1,000 to the building fund of the “colored” YMCA.
The business was growing, and along with that, so was Walker’s philanthropic and political outreach.
Walker became active in the anti-lynching movement in July 1917, after a white mob murdered three dozen blacks in East St. Louis, Illinois. She worked and was able to employ 40,000 African American women and men in the U.S., Central America, and the Caribbean. She donated millions of dollars to educational causes and black charities. In 1917, she also founded the National Negro Cosmetics Manufactures Association.
Before she passed, Walker wrote in her will that two-thirds of future net profits would go to charity and that thousands of other dollars would go to different individuals and schools.
Altogether, Walker’s total net worth topped $1 million, which included her mansion, Villa Lewaro, and her multiple work companies. Her business led her to become the first African American woman who was a self-made millionaire.
Walker’s legacy still holds strong to this day. She changed the game for African American hair care and hair products and became a stepping stone for many women.
Walker left behind a great legacy, and this quote that says it all, “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”
