Sarah Breedlove was born in December 23,1867 on Louisiana Plantation, in Delta, to slave parents.
According to history, she became the first black female to invent a hair growth product and a hair straightener for black women encountering hair problems.
As early as the 1990s, bathing for the blacks was still a luxury, a once-a-month situation for most.
So, the lack of bathing kept most of the black hair in disastrous conditions, and Sarah’s case was no different.
She began to get extra self-conscious about her looks, when she approached mid-thirties, and it prompted the search for durable hair solutions.
Sarah, also known as Madam C.J Walker, because of her third husband, created a mixture that she applied on her hair and monitored the results.
Gratifyingly, her hair began to grow back, so she tried it on her friends, and it worked for them as well.
People in Walker’s neighbourhood saw the drastic change in her hair and began asking questions, which gave her a business idea– referring to the product as Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower– an initial investment of $1.25!
Madam C.J Walker worked real hard to grow her hair business; she dressed up in a white blouse and long black skirt, every day, to make sales from house to house, church to church, and even in club gatherings.
By 1910, Sarah had become self-accomplished, with her net worth reaching beyond 1 million, even though, she had used $10,000 of her savings to do further establishments.
A lot of in-person lectures and demonstrations of what she referred to as the ‘Walker Method’, were held, mainly about ‘,washing hair with gentle shampoo, brushing hair, massaging the scalp, and then treating hair with a healing pomade’.
It is believed that the wonderful hair products continued to be sold in drugstores for decades, after Sarah’s death, until it was relaunched in 2022.
Some of Walker’s favorite quotes are :
“There’s no royal flower-strewn path to success.”
“I got my start by giving myself a start.”
“Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunity to come.”
Mrs. Walker died on May 25, 1919, leaving behind a daughter, Leila, whom she gave birth to with her first husband, Moses McWilliams, at the age of 14.
There was a second husband, Jason Davis, but their relationship didn’t last for long.
