MADAM CJ WALKER

First Black woman to become a self-made millionaire Madam C.J. Walker was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist. She rose from poverty in the South to become one of the wealthiest African American women of her time. She used her position to advocate for the advancement of black Americans and to end to lynching.
Born Sarah Breedlove was born on December 23, 1867, on a cotton plantation in Delta, Louisiana.
Her parents Owen and Minerva Breedlove as well as her five older siblings were born in to slavery working on Robert W Bernie's Madison Parish plantation. Eventually her family became free and began working as sharecroppers. Unlike the rest of her family, Sarah was born free thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Sarah's early life was full of hardships. In 1872, her mother sadly passed away. Just a year later her father also died. She was just six years old and was now an orphan. After these events took place, she moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi to live with her older sister Lavinia and her and her brother in law, Jess Powell. She was as young as ten years old when she started working as a domestic servant. Sarah didn't receive any real education as a child. She would just get literacy lessons on Sundays at her local church. Sarah misliked living with her sister since her brother in law mistreated her. She ended up getting married to Moses McWilliams at the age of 14 years old to escape his abuse. Three years later, Sarah gave birth to a daughter, Lelia. When her husband died in 1887, she became a single parent of two-year old daughter. In an attempt to get out of poverty, in 1889, Madam moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where her four brothers were barbers. She worked as a laundress and cook. She also joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she met leading black men and women, whose education and success likewise inspired her. In 1894, she married John Davis, but the marriage was troubled, and the couple later divorced.
Struggling financially, facing hair loss, and feeling the strain of years of physical labor, Sarah's life took a dramatic turn in 1904. That year, she not only began using African American businesswoman Annie Turbo Malone’s "The Great Wonderful Hair Grower,” but she also joined Malone’s team of black women sales agents. A year later, Sarah moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married ad-man Charles Joseph Walker, renamed herself “Madam C.J. Walker,” and with $1.25, launched her own line of hair products and straighteners for African American women, “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.” Walker’s business grew rapidly, with sales exceeding $500,000 in the final year of her life. Her total worth topped $1 million dollars, and included a mansion in Irvington, New York dubbed “Villa Lewaro”. She also had properties in Harlem, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. As her wealth increased, so did her philanthropic and political outreach. Madam C.J. Walker contributed to the YMCA, covered tuition for six African American students at Tuskegee Institute, and became active in the anti-lynching movement, donating $5,000 to the NAACP’s efforts. Just prior to dying of kidney failure, Walker revised her will, leaving two-thirds of future net profits to charity, as well as thousands of dollars to various individuals and schools. Walker's daughter, A'Lelia became the first president of the Madam CJ Walker manufacturing company and an important part of the Harlem Renaissance. The Madam Walker Theatre Center in Indianapolis started construction prior to Walkers death, it was finally opened in 1927. For decades, it would go to be an important cultural center for African Americans. The theatre as well as the Villa Lewaro were later listed on the National Register of History Places. In Netflix's Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker , Octavia Spencer stars as America's first self-made female millionaire—a woman who built a haircare empire from scratch. Sources:[biography.com, madamcjwalker.com]