My friend A’Lelia Bundles has been the keeper of her family’s history almost all her life. She is the great great granddaughter and biographer of Sarah Breedlove, more famously known as Madam C. J. Walker, the nation’s first female self-made millionaire.
Self Made not only describes Madam’s career, it is the title of a Netflix mini-series inspired by her life starring Octavia Spencer, directed by Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Harriet), and based on A’Lelia’s book, On Her Own Ground.
Born into freedom just a few years after the end of the Civil War and orphaned at the age of seven, Walker moved in with an older sister and worked as a laundress. She married at the age of 14, had a daughter A’Lelia, and was widowed by age 20.
Madam experienced her own problems with damaged hair and baldness from lye-based soaps, poor diet, lack of hygienic indoor plumbing for regular hair washing, and stress. She turned to hair dresser Annie Malone and her products for help, and later became a commission agent for Malone’s Poro Company. Annie Malone would later become one of Walker’s chief rivals in the industry.
In 1905, at age 37, Walker migrated from St. Louis to Denver, Colorado, where she met and married advertising salesman Charles Joseph (C.J.) Walker and began developing her own hair care line. The couple grew the business selling door to door teaching other women to groom and style their hair, and incorporating a mail order operation.
In 1907 she closed the business in Denver and moved to Pittsburgh, where she opened a beauty parlor and established a college to train “hair culturists” in the Walker System.
In 1910, Walker established a new headquarters in Indianapolis including a research laboratory, manufacturing plant, hair salon and beauty school. The complex also featured a restaurant, movie and live theater center, and was the hub of the local African American community.
Walker parlayed her fame to speaking out about political, cultural and economic issues. She financially supported the establishment of the Indianapolis YMCA, the famed Tuskegee Institute, what later became Bethune-Cookman University, and the NAACP’s anti-lynching fund, making the largest individual donation at the time.
By her death in 1920, the company’s business had expanded to Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Panama and Costa Rica, employing 20,000 sales agents and hair salon owners. Her New York mansion, Villa Lewaro, was the center of the African American cultural and organizing community. Her will directed two-thirds of the future net profits of her estate to charity. In a time when gender and racial discrimination were codified, she overcame tremendous opposition with courage, vision and an iron will.
Documenting and preserving Walker’s legacy has been the lifetime avocation of her descendant, A’Lelia. Besides the biography, she has written several other books on Walker, and served as a consultant for Sundial Brands, a Black-owned skin and haircare company which collaborated with Sephora on a new Walker product line in 2016.
Walker’s attorney and Company general manager in Indianapolis was Freeman Ransom. Ransom’s grandson, contemporary filmmaker and MacArthur Fellow Stanley Nelson (Black Panthers, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool), made the first documentary on Walker, Two Dollars and a Dream in 1987.
Both Bundles and Nelson have turned preserving family stories and historical legacies into an art form. As we take time in March to honor the achievements of women, their work continues to inspire generations, providing a road map for economic, social and cultural empowerment yet to come.
*Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker will premiere on Netflix on March 20, 2020.
