The rags-to-riches story of C J Walker, an African-American slave-turned-millionaire seems too good to be true; however, it is a journey of perseverance, penchant for work, and an ambition to deliver for the greater good.
A tough childhood
C J Walker was born Sarah Breedlove to slave-turned-sharecropper parents in a shack at the edge of a cotton field in Louisiana. Both her parents died by the time she turned seven, leaving Sarah and her sister to fend for themselves.
At that time, the chasm between blacks and whites was far too widewith the Jim Crow law in full force, Sarah had to serve as a slave in those cotton fields. At 14, to escape her abusive brother-in-law, she moved north to St. Louis, where she worked at her brothers barber shop as a cook and a laundress.
Already the mother of a child, her husband died just two years after their daughters birth.
Still, Sarah was determined to send her kid to the finest public school in New York. However, her meagre income of $1.50 a day was barely enough to scrape a living, let alone fund her daughter Leias education.
Sarahs life took a dramatic turn when she joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a congregation of several leading black men and women of that generation. Their success inspired Sarah to not give up on her dreams and rise higher in the face of adversity.
And some hair-raising times
But to add to her woes, she was diagnosed with a scalp ailment, causing her to lose a lot of hair.
As her great-granddaughter ALelia Bundles explains in an essay she posted: During the early 1900s, when most Americans lacked indoor plumbing and electricity, bathing was a luxury. As a result, Sarah and many other women were going bald because they washed their hair so infrequently, leaving it vulnerable to environmental hazards, such as pollution, bacteria, and lice.
After consultation with her barber brothers, she came across Wonderful Hair Grower, a hair growth formula sold by a black woman entrepreneur, Annie Malone Turnbo. So impressed was Sarah with the bottles content, she wanted to know more about it.
Incidentally, Annies company hired female agents to learn about her products and then sell them to black women. Sarah applied for the role and was hired by Malone as a sales agent for her beauty products. And thus began her tryst with the haircare industry, under the guidance of arguably the most popular black beautician in the US.
The turnaround
Fascinated by Malones products, Sarah learnt to her hearts content all the formulas and recipes to concoct the hair growth lotions and then improvised on them to create a more powerful formula.
While working on the new formula, she came in contact with Charles Joseph Walker, known as C J Walker, a savvy advertising agent. Both corresponded over work and decided to marry a year later, shifting to Denver, Colorado, after marriage.
After marriage, Walker encouraged Sarah to adopt the name Madam C J Walker (the name she would be known by thereafter) and sell her products under it. Thus, few months down the line, Sarah debuted her own line of hair products and straighteners for African-American women, branding them as Madam Walkers Wonderful Hair Grower.
Innovation weds success
Developed with an investment of $1.25 from her own pocket, the products struck a chord with the African-American women. Sarah left no stone unturned in promoting the productscovering door-to-door sales campaigns and demonstrating women how to correctly apply the product.
She and her husband even undertook a whirlwind promotional tour in US South-Southeast corridor, advertising their products through live demos, free samples, and carefully curated ads.
Her husband was a great creative force, and Sarah was the best role model one could ask forindeed, her Before and Now images on posters evoked stunned reactions from potential customers.
In another advertising masterstroke, Sarah published banner ads in majorly African-American magazines and newspapers. Her sales agents, also known as Walker Agents, carried tin cans with her image on each one of them.
By plastering her image over every possible canvas that could promote her products, Sarah created a powerful association between her face and beauty products, especially among the black population.
What would seem the norm in todays times, with big brands roping in high-profile celebrities to increase traction, Sarah was already a master at it, long before the game had even started.
Not only that, her posters were often seen as uplifting, as were her messages, encouraging women to apply her formula and regrow their lost hairand pride.
Selling the image
In 1908, Sarah relocated to Pittsburgh and founded the Lelia College of Beauty Culture, a school that trained beauty agents in a specific manner. These beauty culturists, better known as Walker agents (another example of associating her name with the product), travelled all around the US in smart white uniforms, helping women to choose and apply their products.
Sarah found a lot of takers for this role, and in 1910, she was compelled to open the Madam C J Walker Manufacturing Company in Indianapolis, amidst the thriving black business community. She had finally made her mark in the African-American business world.
By 1919, it is estimated over 40,000 beauty agents had been trained in her schools across the US.
A powerful legacy
From 1911 till Sarahs death in 1919, her company thrived in the beauty industrys competitive landscape. Sales exceeded half a million dollars by the end of the decade, and Sarah established herself as one of the first self-made African-American millionaire.
However, it were her contributions to the society, especially for upliftment of blacks, that she is most fondly remembered for.
Though Walker went on to become extremely wealthy with access to most privileges that even whites didnt have, she did not forget her roots and the black community that had given her shelter and comfort during hour of need.
Sarah contributed heavily towards employing more women and encouraging them towards entrepreneurship; the Madam C J Walker Hair Culturists Union of America convention in Philadelphia in 1917 is regarded as one of the first national meetings of businesswomen in the country. It was a celebration of sorts, with prizes handed out to Walker agents beating their targets.
Sarah was also vocal about the treatment whites meted out to blacks; she took part in an anti-lynching national movement after the ruthless murder of a black man by a white mob. Later, she contributed $5,000 to NAACPs anti-lynching movement, the highest individual contribution. Harlem, New York, also gained deeply through her association; she was central to its social, political and cultural activities.
Sarah epitomised the concept of rags-to-riches; rising to unprecedented wealth and fame despite her background, colour, and education. A role model for millions of women of any era, she shattered every glass ceiling and inspired many women to do so too.
Remember the Titans is a weekly ode to the inventors, geniuses, and business pioneers who left the world better than they got it. Check out stories of other Titans here.
Anant Gupta is a Business Intelligence Analyst at KPMG.