Who was Madam C.J. Walker?
Civil Rights Activist, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur (1867- 1919)
Madam C.J. Walker was an african-american entrepreneur, philanthropist, and was the first female self-made millionaire in America. She became a millionaire by developing a line of hair care products for black women.
Early Life
Madam C.J Walker was born on December 23, 1867, by Owen and Minerva Breedlove, in Delta, Louisiana. Her original name was Sarah Breedlove. Her parents had just been emancipated. At the age of seven she was orphaned, because Sarah's parents gad gotten sick with yellow fever and died. She then moved to Vicksburg to live with her sister Louvinia and her husband. Unfortunately, Louvinia's husband created a terrible environment for her, so to escape the mistreatment from her brother-in-law, she married a man named Moses McWilliams at only fourteen. When she turned eighteen, she and her husband had a child named Lelia. Sadly, her husband passed two years later. She and her daughter moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she found work as a laundress. She sent her daughter to Knoxville college after working for eighteen years at her laundress job. She was very proud of her daughter because she While living in St. Louis, she met her second husband, Charles J. Her new husband worked in advertising which would later promote her hair care business. When she was in her late thirties, she began to experience hair loss problems due to stress, damaging hair care products, and scalp ailments. This is what encouraged her to begin searching for a remedy for her problem with hair loss. She then created a line of hair care products for african-american women.