Who was Madam C.J. Walker? What you should know about the Black entrepreneur
Madam C.J. Walker — an entrepreneur, philanthropist and activist — became the first Black woman millionaire in America.
She was born Sarah Breedlove on Dec. 23, 1867, on a Louisiana plantation to formerly enslaved parents. Walker was the first in her family to be born free. She climbed out of poverty to become one of the wealthiest Black women of her time by building a hair care empire.
Walker married her first husband at 14 and had one daughter, A’Lelia, according to an essay Walker’s granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles wrote. She was widowed at 20 and moved to St. Louis, joining her four brothers who were barbers. She worked for as little as $1.50 a day (roughly $48.86 in 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ estimates prior to the modern consumer price index).
In the 1890s, a scalp ailment caused Walker to lose most of her hair.
She moved to Denver in 1905 after separating from her second husband and the death of her brothers. Later, she married her third husband, Charles Joseph Walker.
In 1905, she launched a scalp conditioning and healing formula: “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.” Her other four original products were the Temple Salve, Tetter Salve, Vegetable Shampoo and Glossine.
Walker’s creations emphasized health. She joined the market at a time when very few products were made for Black women, setting her products apart from others.
She later moved to Indianapolis and opened a factory for her Walker Manufacturing Company.
Walker ultimately employed 40,000 Black women and men across the U.S., Central America and the Caribbean. In 1917, she founded the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association.
“I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South,” Walker said in July 1912. “From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations … I have built my own factory on my own ground.”
Her net worth topped $1 million at the time of her death in 1919 — or $18.1 million in 2023. She’s listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the first self-made American woman millionaire who didn’t inherit or marry into wealth.
Other women, including Walker’s former employer Annie Turnbo and financier Mary Ellen Pleasant, may have hit the million-dollar-mark earlier, though their finances aren’t as well documented.
Walker paid tuition for six Black students at Tuskegee Institute, donated $5,000 to the NAACP’s anti-lynching efforts. She left two-thirds of her future net profits to charity.
In 2020, her story was turned into a limited Netflix series, “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker.” Last year, she joined Barbie’s Inspiring Women collection.
This story was originally published March 7, 2023 at 3:41 PM with the headline "Who was Madam C.J. Walker? What you should know about the Black entrepreneur."