Sarah Breedlove was born on Dec. 23, 1867 on a Louisiana cotton plantation. She started as the child of poor sharecroppers and ended up as one of the richest women in America. She was the first of her parent’s kids to be born in freedom, but other than that her childhood was rough. She was orphaned at age six, married at age 14, and widowed at age 20. At this point, she moved from Mississippi to St. Louis where her older brothers worked as barbers. She became a laundress making $1.50 day, on a good day. She went to night school when she could. Like many black women, she suffered from hair problems. She was losing hair from her scalp. Her brothers encouraged her to do something about it. She developed a formula she called “Madame Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower”. By this time she was remarried to Charles Walker and she took the name Madam CJ Walker. She started her business from scratch, but ended up employing thousands of black women as “hair culturists” who went door-to-door selling her products. She opened Lelia College of Beauty Culture in Pittsburgh to train her ladies in the use of scalp preparations, pomades, shampoos, and lotions for restoring hair. She was a big success and has been credited with being the first self-made black female millionaire in America. She built a 20,000 square foot mansion in New York called Villa Lewaro. It became a salon where she hosted figures from the Harlem Renaissance. She was friends with Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, and W.E.B. Dubois. She was a great philanthropist and gave thousands of dollars to charities. She donated to the NAACP, the black YMCA, and provided scholarships to Tuskegee Institute. When she died in 1919, she was one of the most respected black women in America.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/583774/madam-cj-walker-facts
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/madame-c-j-walker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madam_C._J._Walker
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