Madam C.J. Walker

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Madam C.J. Walker, Madam C.J. Walker was born as Sarah Breedlove, on December 23, 1867 in Delta, Louisiana to Owen and Minerva Breedlove.

Her parents and elder siblings were slaves on a Madison Parish plantation owned by Robert W. Burney. Her mother died, possibly from cholera, in 1872. Her father remarried and died shortly afterward when she was seven years old. Her parents were freed slaves.

She was married with Moses McWilliams when she was 14 years old, then she get a home of her own.
Sarah Breedlove or known as Madam C.J. Walker, was the first black female millionaire. Her products were established in the early 1900s and are still being sold today. But Walker was not just an inventor of hair-growing products, but a hands-on activist who used her influence to fight the White House against lynching and slavery.
By 1910, Walker had built the largest manufacturing company in the country, which housed her second training school and salon. While working and training students, she would give contributions like $1,000 to the Indiana colored YMCA. When the NAACP took on anti-lynching work, Walker issued a check for $5,000. Then in 1917, three dozen blacks were killed by an angry white mob in East St. Louis, Illinois. Walker immediately joined civic leaders and left for the White House to protest lynching. That same year, she preached a message of equality at the Madam C.J. Walker Hair Culturists Union of America convention in Philadelphia, the largest gathering of black businesswoman at the time.

Madam C.J. Walker died in 1919 at her mansion, Villa Lewaro, in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. She left her major estate to her only daughter, Lelia. Her home still stands and is privately owned.

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