DOZ Leadership Lessons
Eturuvie Erebor
adan C. J. Walker
was an African-
American
entrepreneur, a
political and social activist,
and a philanthropist. At the
time of her death in May of
1919, she was considered the
wealthiest African-American
businesswoman and most
affluent self-made woman
in America and although her
estate was worth an estimated
$600,000, when she died,
she was eulogized as the first
female self-made millionaire
in the US. But in her obituary
in The New York Times, it was
stated, “she said herself two
years ago that she was not yet
a millionaire, but hoped to be
some time.”
She was born Sarah Breedlove
on the 23rd of December,
1867, in a village in Louisiana.
Her parents were Owen and
Minerva Breedlove. While her
parents and her older siblings
were born into slavery, Sarah was the first child in her
family born into freedom as she was born after the
signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Her parents
within a year of each other and at the age of seven,
Sarah was already an orphan and went to live with her
older sister, and brother-in-law, in Mississippi where
she worked as a domestic servant. She had little or
no opportunity and had only three months of formal
education, which she learned during Sunday school
literacy lessons at church.
At the age of 14, she married Moses McWilliams,
possibly to escape abuse from her brother-in-law, Jesse
Powell, and in that marriage, she had one daughter,
A’Lelia Walker. Moses died in 1887, and in 1894, Sarah
remarried John Davis but left him around 1903. She
moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married Charles
Joseph Walker, a newspaper advertising salesman.
She became known as Madam C. J. Walker, following
her marriage to Charles Joseph Walker. Her daughter,
DOZ Magazine | February 2020
A’Lelia McWilliams, adopted
her stepfather’s surname
and became known as A’Lelia
Walker. The marriage to
Charles lasted about six years
and they divorced in 1912.
She founded Madam C.
J. Walker Manufacturing
Company and invented a line of
African American hair products
after suffering from a scalp
ailment that resulted in her hair
loss. Through this business, she
made a fortune. She promoted
her products by traveling
around the country giving
lecture-demonstrations and
training sales beauticians. By
1917 her company had trained
about 20,000 women. In
addition to training in sales and
grooming, she showed other
black women how to budget,
build their own businesses, and
encouraged them to become
financially independent. She
organised her sales agents into
state and local clubs and the result was the establishment
of the National Beauty Culturists and Benevolent
Association of Madam C. J. Walker Agents.
As her wealth increased, she became more vocal about
her views. At one gathering, she declared: “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 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.”
Madam C. J. Walker died at the age of 51 in May of 1919,
and her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, became the president
of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company.
Her name became even more widely known, after her
death, as her company’s business market expanded
beyond the United States to Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti,
Panama, and Costa Rica.
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MADAM C. J.
WALKER