While learning about the Great Migration in class, we talked about a successful business woman with the name of Madam C. J. Walker or Sarah Breedlove. She introduced a brand of specialized hair products for African American hair and was one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire. Her business success started with her own hair lost, as she noticed the scalp ailment due to hair lost, she started the idea of a hair care product for African Americans. Madam C.J. Walker promoted her products by traveling around the country and giving lectures demonstrations that gained wide support. Eventually she established the Madam C.J. Walker laboratories to manufacture cosmetics and train sales beauticians.
In 1908, Madam C.J. Walker opened up a factory and a beauty school in Pittsburg and by 1910 Walker transferred her business operations to Indianapolis where Walker's company became wildly successful. Walker and her husband were widely known as the "walking agents" all around the black communities in the United States. In her later life, upon coming back from her travels, Walker moved to a townhouse in Harlem where she immersed herself in Harlem's social and political culture. Seeing the many opportunities Harlem gave, she founded National Advancement of Colored People, National Conference on Lynching and other important organizations.
We never hear about successful women during this time, let alone one who was black. It's amazing about someone who probably came across many obstacles throughout her life, became so successful.
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