December 23: Birthday of Madam C. J. Walker (1867)
Prayer Idea
Pray for people who are pursuing an entrepreneurial vision to start a new business.
History Note
Sarah Breedlove was born in Louisiana in 1867. Her parents, Owen and Minerva Breedlove, worked as sharecroppers on the same plantation where they had been enslaved.
Sarah became an orphan at age seven. She married at age 14 to escape an abusive situation. Sarah’s daughter, Lelia, was born in 1885. After Sarah’s husband died in 1887, Sarah and Lelia moved to St. Louis, where they had relatives.
In St. Louis, Sarah became part of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and sang in the choir. She also joined the National Association of Colored Women. The connections she made inspired her and prepared her for the next stage of her journey.
In the 1890s, Sarah suffered from a health issue that led to hair loss. She experimented with various home remedies and commercial products. One of her mentors was Annie Malone, a black woman who started her own business making hair care products. Sarah finally developed her own scalp treatments.
In 1906 Sarah married Charles Joseph Walker, a St. Louis newspaperman. She chose Madam C. J. Walker as her professional name and the name of the business. Madam Walker traveled across the country, selling her products door to door and meeting with black women in churches and other community groups. She started training other women to be sales agents.
In 1910 Walker settled in Indianapolis where she built her own factory, hair salon, and training school. She expanded her business to Central America and the Caribbean. Walker moved to Harlem in 1916.
Walker joined NAACP efforts to stop lynching. Lynching is when a group goes outside the legal system to kill someone. The victim may be accused of a crime or he may simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A mob of white people in East St. Louis, Illinois, killed dozens of black people there in 1917. After this brutal event, Walker joined others in going to Washington, D.C., to call on President Woodrow Wilson and Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation.
At a meeting in Philadelphia of women who worked for Madam Walker’s company, she told them:
This is the greatest country under the sun. But we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice. We should protest until the American sense of justice is so aroused that such affairs as the East St. Louis riot be forever impossible.
Madam C. J. Walker wanted her sales agents to succeed financially, but she also encouraged them to be involved in charitable activities. Madam Walker died in 1919 at age 51. Her daughter, who took the name A'Lelia Walker, became president of her company.
Tin for Madam C. J. Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower. Image from the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Dawn Simon Spears and Alvin Spears, Sr.
Learn More
This video about Madam C. J. Walker features A’Lelia Bundles, her great-great-granddaughter.
Please Note: There are images of KKK rallies and a reference to lynching.
Find more resources at Homeschool History.
