Madam C.J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker

Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on Dec. 23, 1867, in Delta, Louisiana. She was the daughter of Owen and Minerva Breedlove. Her parents were former slaves working as sharecroppers, and they both died when Sarah was a child. Because of her parents' death, she was forced to move from one household to another. At the age of seven, she moved with her sister Louvina and her husband. After Sarah suffered abuse from Louvina's husband, she ran away and married Moses McWilliams when she was 14 years old. In 1885, she gave birth to their daughter Lelia. In 1887 (two years later) Moses was murdered by a white lynch mob.

After this tragedy, Sarah moved with her daughter to St. Louis, Missouri, where she worked as a cook and housecleaner. Unfortunately, all of the stress and hardship had begun to take its toll on her and she found her hair falling out. She tried several products that claimed to help her, but all failed. With that, Sarah had a dream in which a "big black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out."

After she shared her formula with some of her friends and found it successful for them also, she realized that there were almost no hair products available for blacks. So she decided to go into business, selling hair products to black women. In 1905 Sarah's brother died, so she moved to Denver, Colorado, to live with her sister-in-law. She met Charles Joseph "C.J." Walker, who was a newspaperman with an innate ability for marketing. On January 4, 1906, she married Walker and the couple set up the "Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company" and placed advertisements in black newspapers throughout the United States. There were a few disagreements on how much the company should grow, although they were a successful team. But times got tough, and Sarah divorced her husband in order devote all of her time to the business. Continuing on with the ideas Walker had given to her, including going door-to-door sales, Sarah's hard work paid off. In 1906, she brought Lelia, who was a recent college graduate. to manage the company.

In 1908, Sarah started a college named after her daughter called Lelia College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It trained women to sell their products door-to-door. By 1910, Sarah had more than 1,000 sales agents. That year, she moved the company's headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana, and soon the company grew beyond anyone's expectations.

By 1914, Sarah, who'd only nine years earlier had only $2 to her name, was now worth more than $1 million.

Her products went from hair conditioners and facial creams to hot combs specially made for the hair of black consumers. After her early suffering and poverty-plagued existence, Sarah had looked for a way out and, as Madam C.J. Walker, she was able to purchase a 34-room mansion built off of the Hudson River in New York. On May 25, 1919, Madam C.J. Walker died and was mourned throughout the black community as a pioneer and a black industrialist. For many black and white women, she had served an inspiration and a role model.

I picked Madam C.J. Walker as my hero because, if ever there comes a time where I feel like I can't do something because of stress or something else, she taught me to make sacrifices. She dedicated her time to something that she really wanted and had a desire to do. She also taught me that even if I don't have but $2 to my name, that $2 can take me a long way if I keep my mind focused on something that I know is going to benefit me in the future. One of the main reasons why I picked Madam C.J. Walker as my hero is because she went through a whole lot just to get where she ended up in life. She showed me that nobody's perfect; everyone has his or her faults. She is a black women who got somewhere in life! She's one of the reasons why I keep my head up and strive to do my best! Thanks to Madam C.J. Walker!