Sarah Becomes Madame CJ Walker

Then Sarah got married to Charles Joseph Walker in 1905. After a few years they divorced but she kept the name Madame CJ Walker.

Soon Sarah's hair products business took off. It was a small business called Madame C.J. Walker's Manufacturing Company. Sarah donated money to Frederick Douglas and the Tuskegee Institute. She travelled to the Caribbean and Latin America to promote her business and teach her hair care methods. In 1917, she constructed and estate called Villa Lewaro in Irvington On Hudson New York. Sarah was one of the richest African Americans and women of her time. Madame C. J. Walker named her first beauty school Lelia College. Sadly Sarah died in 1919 at the age of 51. Madame Walker help to prove men and women were equal. She showed that a women could run a million dollar company and invent many products.

Fun Fact: My Dad grew up in Irvington On Hudson. It is a town close to New
York City.

Madame CJ Walker

Madame CJ Walker was born December 23rd, 1867 with the name of Sarah Breedlove. She was an African American and the first person in her family to be born free. Her family lived in a dirt floor shack when she was born on a plantation in Delta, Loiusiana. Her family and the Burney family were sharecroppers but the Burney family owned the cotton fields. By five years olds she worked on the plantation in the cotton fields for 12 hours per day. Soon the long hours in the sun started to damage Sarah's hair. Sarah became determined to put a stop to her hair loss with home remedies and began experimenting.

At the age of 14 , she married Moses McWilliams. When she was 18 years old, they had a baby named Lelia. In 1887, when Sarah was 20 years old, Moses McWilliams was killed by a lynch mob. Some people think Moses was killed because Sarah supported an anti-lynch mob organization. The organization raised money to help stop lynching. Now despite her sorrow Sarah now had to find a way to support herself and her young child.