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Black History Month 2022: Madame C.J. Walker

Madame C.J. Walker

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Quotes

 

I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.

-Madame C.J. Walker

If I have accomplished anything in life it is because I have been willing to work hard.

I  want you to understand that your first duty is to humanity. I want others to look at us and see that we care not just about ourselves but about others.

I  am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. 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.

I got my start by giving myself a start.

It’s pretty hard for the Lord to guide you if you haven’t made up your mind which way to go.

Perseverance is my motto.

I  want the great masses of my people to take a greater pride in their personal  appearance and to give their hair proper attention.

 

  1. Madame C.J. Walker is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist who rose from poverty in the South to become one of the wealthiest African American women of her time.
  2. She used her position to advocate for the advancement of black Americans and for an end to lynching.
  3. Madame C.J. Walker’s birth name is Sarah Breedlove. She was born to ex-slaves after the Civil War on a plantation.
  4. In 1904 Walker became a sales agent for Annie Turbo Malone’s "The Great Wonderful Hair Grower.”
  5. Walker changed her name after she married and moved to Denver, Colorado.
  6. With $1.25, Madame C.J. Walker launched her own line of hair products and straighteners for African American women, “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.”
  7. Walker divorced and relocated to Indianapolis and built a factory for her Walker Manufacturing Company.
  8. Madame C.J. Walker was an advocate of black women’s economic independence. She opened training programs in the “Walker System” for her national network of licensed sales agents who earned healthy commissions.
  9. Walker employed 40,000 African American women and men in the US, Central America, and the Caribbean. She also founded the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association in 1917.
  10. The final year of Walker’s life boasted sales exceeding $500,000. Her total worth topped $1 million dollars, and included a mansion in Irvington, New York dubbed “Villa Lewaro;” and properties in Harlem, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis.
  11. Walker contributed to the YMCA, covered tuition for six African American students at Tuskegee Institute, and became active in the anti-lynching movement, donating $5,000 to the NAACP’s efforts.
  12. Just prior to dying of kidney failure, Walker revised her will, bequeathing two-thirds of future net profits to charity, as well as thousands of dollars to various individuals and schools.