Black History Month: First Black Millionaire, Madame C.J. Walker

She was born Sarah Breedlove two days before Christmas in the year of 1867. Breedlove was born in Delta, Louisiana, a sleepy little village in Madison Parish. In addition to Sarah, a sister and two brothers rounded out the family. Her parents, Owen Jr. and Minerva had been slaves, but they were free after the Civil War ended. Breedlove grew up with her family until, at age seven, both her parents died from Yellow Fever. When Sarah was ten years old, she and her sister Louvenia moved to Vicksburg in an effort to escape the fever epidemic and find work. They found work as maids, but Sarah Breedlove's life would change dramatically after that. Even her name would change.

 Madame Walker opened a training school for beauticians in 1908, and she oversaw the operation in Pittsburgh for the next two years. It was named the "Lelia College for Walker Hair Culturists". The college taught women how to become "Walker Agents" and sell Walker's hair care products door-to-door across the United States. By 1910, Madame Walker had more than a thousand women working for her selling her products. Even though she was successful, Walker moved her company's headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana. It was a sound business move. Because, in Indianapolis, her hair product business boomed.

 In 1914, at the age of 47, Madame C.J. Walker became the first African-American millionaire. She moved to New York two years later, and opened another office there. Madame C. J. Walker died on May 25, 1919, at the age of fifty-one, from hypertension. She left behind a thirty-four room mansion that had been built on the Irvington-on-Hudson. Not only was she the first African-American to become a millionaire, but Madame Walker was also the richest African-American woman as well.

 Read more here The First African-American Millionaire: Sarah Breedlove (aka Madame C.J. Walker)