Why is Sarah Breedlove Walker an inspiration for African American women?

          Sarah Breedlove was born in a poor farm family on December 23, 1867, in Delta, Louisiana. By the age of nineteen, Sarah was a widow with a young daughter to support, and she moved to St. Louis to work as a hotel washerwoman. In 1906, Sarah married Denver newspaperman Charles Joseph Walker, and changed her name to Madame C.J. Walker.

          Around 1910, Sarah came up with idea of straightening hair with a hot iron comb and an ointment to add softness and shine. It was an important development because for generations, black women had straightened tightly curled hair on ironing boards. This was sometimes harmful to the scalp and face and broke the hair. Sarah developed a variety of products to serve a range of hair care needs. She peddled them door to door, and then organized agents in ‘Walker Clubs’. She opened a shop, trained assistants, and then later added mail order sales, followed by a beauty school that taught the Walker Method of hair straightening and hair growing.

         Her next step was to build a factory, and soon she was employing 3,000 workers in America’s largest black-owned business. She became a social leader, and opened a hair care laboratory, and a chain of beauty salons in Harlem. Thus, a St. Louis washerwoman, created a cosmetic empire by inventing a system of hair straightening to become an inspiration for all African American women.