The true story of Madam CJ Walker, the woman who inspired the Netflix series

The plot of the Netflix series The Life and Story of Madam CJ Walker is based on the life of Sarah Breedlove, who appears in the Guinness as the first American millionaire to become rich alone, that is, without having received an inheritance or married a millionaire. It’s the story of an African-American woman who fought the tide and went from laundress to businesswoman, well-known in the high society of her day.

O awesome.club shares more details of the life of Madam C. J. Walker so you can get to know this amazing woman, in addition to what is shown in the four-episode miniseries, created for Netflix.

For nearly 250 years, people of African descent were enslaved in the United States until, in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect in 1863 and officially abolished slavery in the country, making more than 3 people free. .5 million individuals. If the law had not been enacted, the story you are about to read next would not have happened.

Born in 1867 on Madison Parish Farm, Louisiana, Sarah Breedlove was the first person in her family to enter the world free.🇧🇷 However, freedom was just a first step, as he had a somewhat complicated childhood. She was orphaned at the age of seven and went to live with her older sister and her husband, where she was mistreated. At fourteen, to escape her brother-in-law’s abuse, she married Moses McWilliams and, three years later, their only child, Leila McWilliams, was born🇧🇷 At the age of approximately 20, Sarah became a widow.

So he made a living working in the cotton fields, but decided to move to Saint Louis, Missouri, where his brothers were barbers. There, he got a job as a laundress, for which he was paid just $1.5 a day. Even under these conditions, she was determined to save money so that her daughter could study, while she herself attended school at night🇧🇷

Sarah’s ambitions prevented her from conforming to the idea of ​​being a laundress for the rest of her life. “I was in the tank one morning with a pile of heavy clothes in front of me when I bent over and saw my arms dipped in soap suds. So she said to myself: what am I going to do when I get older and have back problems? Who will take care of my daughter?”, she said to the New York Times, in an interview in 1917.

In Saint Louis, Sarah began attending the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she met black leaders, men and women who inspired her. In 1894, she married a second time, to John Davis, but the marriage was troubled and she was divorced a few years later.

Like many black women of the time, Sarah had serious problems with her hair: baldness, dandruff, scalp pain, etc. All this due to a poor diet, infrequent washing (many homes did not have running water) and the use of products with caustic soda in the composition.

His brothers taught him how to take care of his hair, but a decisive factor for him to regain a healthy mane (and his self-esteem) was to start using the Annie Malone Products, a businesswoman, also African-American.

One day, Sarah became a door-to-door salesperson for Malone’s products, and in 1905 she moved to Denver, Colorado, to be able to sell them there and conquer a new market. At the same time, started working to develop his own business of hair products (years later he would face prosecution for alleged theft of intellectual property).

In 1906, aged 38, Sarah decided to give love another chance and married Charles Joseph Walker, whose surname she adopted and became known as Madam C. J. Walker. Her new husband was a newspaper ad salesman and helped her promote her new product, “Madam C. J. Walker’s wonderful hair tonic,” a scalp conditioning and treatment formula.

Madam Walker began to have success with her product sales and integrated more salespeople to her team. The business started to grow, and the entrepreneur tasked her daughter (who had changed her name to A’Lelia Walker) to mail the orders while she and her husband roamed the south of the country in search of new customers. The couple demonstrated how to use the ointment, hot combs and special brushing.

In 1908, they moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and opened “Lelia College” to train new saleswomen. There they began to implement the “Walker System”, which included training to obtain a certificate as a sales agent, a role that yielded great commissions.

Later, the headquarters of the business moved to Indianapolis, with the opening of the factory “Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company”. Madam also opened a hairdressing salon and a beauty school where she continued to train people, especially women. she managed to have thousands of sellers of your brand and, in 1917, there were about 20,000 wearing white blouses, black skirts and carrying a suitcase with the goods.

Madam Walker’s marketing skills were critical to her success as she understood the power of good advertising and brand image. Thus, she advertised in the appropriate media (African-American newspapers and magazines), even using her own photography as an example of the results achieved with the use of her products.

As his business neared its apogee, your marriage went downhill🇧🇷 She didn’t spend much time at home and her husband was not only financially irresponsible in misusing the money, he was also accused of embezzling funds and having affairs with other women. Finally, in 1912, they split up, and while Madam C. J. Walker was recognized, the man she adopted her surname fell into anonymity.

In 1913, A’Lelia convinced her mother to open a new office and salon in Harlem to conquer cosmopolitan New York. In fact, her home was the only one built by an African-American architect in Manhattan, and it became a famous cultural hall where she was known to be a great hostess.

A’Lelia Walker overseeing a facial at one of Madam C. J. Walker’s hair salons.

Once installed in Harlem, Madam C. J. Walker became more involved in social and political life and has spoken out several times against discrimination, in a movement spearheaded by the National Association for the Advancement of People of Color (NAACP). In 1917, she joined a group of Harlem leaders to visit the White House and deliver then-President Woodrow Wilson a formal request for the creation of anti-discrimination legislation, which would not become law until 2020.

On May 25, 1919, Madam C. J. Walker died at age 51 of kidney failure and complications due to hypertension. At that time, she was considered the richest african american in the united states🇧🇷 His daughter A’Lelia became the president of the company.

Students at Madam C. J. Walker’s School of Beauty, 1942

The life of Madam C. J. Walker is of great value to African American women, as she demonstrated that a woman can “make herself for herself” in a society where racial and gender biases are ingrained. She always inspired confidence in its employees and encouraged them to seek financial independence🇧🇷 During its first annual conference in 1917, it awarded its best salespeople and those who contributed to their communities. This is considered to be one of the first national meetings for women entrepreneurs to talk about business.

After his death, the company continued to expand and reached countries such as Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Panama and Costa Rica. Board positions were held by descendants of Madam J. C. Walker, undergoing change from generation to generation, until the “Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company” officially closed in July 1981.

Today, his New York home, known as “Vila Lewaro”, is included on the National Register of Historic Buildings and the building in Indianapolis where the factory operated is known as the “Madam Walker Theater Center”, a place for cultural events. of the community.

Most of what we now know of the story of Madam Walker is due to her biographer and great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles, who wrote the book On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker🇧🇷 The biography also served as the basis for the Netflix series, directed by Kasi Lemmons and DeMane Davis, which tells the story of this incredible woman.

However, the series has taken certain poetic licenses worth noting: Some of them:

Rivalry with Annie Malone: ​​In the series, Madam C. J. Walker (played by Octavia Spencer), has a strong commercial rivalry with Addie Munroe (Carmen Ejogo), a character inspired by the real Annie Malone. In fiction, Addie is a fair-skinned woman who treated Sarah badly and tried to ruin her business, but in reality Addie was also black, with great knowledge of chemistry and who managed to create her own millionaire business.

A’Lelia’s loves: in the series we meet the first husband of A’Lelia (Tiffany Haddish). However, after their split, she started a romantic relationship with a photographer. In fact, Madam’s daughter married twice more, and to this day it has not been proven that she had a relationship with another woman. She also adopted an orphan, known as Mae Walker.

Activism and philanthropy: the series shows Madam C. J. Walker’s relentless interest in making her business prosper, but doesn’t delve too deeply into her activity in activism and philanthropy.

What did you think of this story? Have you watched the series? Do you believe she does justice to Madam’s life? Share your opinion with us in the comments section.