An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 8/30/2020
(This particular entry was preceded by an In Memoriam piece on 8/28/2021,
originally drawn for Free Comic Book Day 2020, now dedicated to the life and legacy of
celebrated actor Chadwick Boseman, who passed very suddenly that date. Wakanda Forever, our King.)
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"There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it."
First of her siblings to be free-born (Louisiana, 1867), Sarah Breedlove's earliest days are scant on details. What is known is that she married a young man named Moses McWilliams at the age of 14 and had a daughter, A'Lelia. Unfortunately Moses passed away 2 years later and Breedlove and her daughter moved to St. Louis. Breedlove found work as a washer woman (a fact she would relate years later without shame or apology), and attended night school, ultimately earning her degree and moving to St. Louis. In 1906 she married an advertiser, Charles Joseph Walker, whereupon she took the name C. J. Walker for herself.
The Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company arose out of a moment in Walker's life when she experienced some hair loss and other scalp afflictions. At the time there was a minimal market for hair care products specifically for black customers, though there were some nascent companies from which Walker took her cues. She moved to Denver, CO and created an independent hairdresser and cosmetics company which quickly grew to meet an overwhelming demand, ultimately leading to a national network, dedicated training schools, and an R&D department. Word of "The Walker System" of multi-level marketing spread, and at the company's nadir its employees numbered in the thousands (many of them women of color in management and leadership roles), and listed Booker T. Washington among its investors.
"Now I realize that in the so-called higher walks of life, many were prone to look down upon 'hairdressers' as they called us; they didn't have a very high opinion of our calling, so I had to go down and dignify this work, so much so that many of the best women of our race are now engaged in this line of business, and many of them are now in my employ."
Today the The Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company is regarded as one of the most widely known and financially successful African-American owned businesses of the early twentieth century, and Walker herself holds the distinction of being one of the first-ever American women to become a self-made millionaire.
Walker is freshly re-energized in the American consciousness this year (2020) due to the Netflix series Self-Made that bowed in March. Accordingly, your recommended reading for this lesson is the biography On Her Own Ground by Walker's great-great-granddaughter A'Lelia Perry Bundles.
Next page - Lesson 35: Gladys Mae West