Madam C.J. Walker, originally named Sarah Breedlove, was born in 1867 in Louisiana to former slaves. At the age of seven, she became an orphan and lived with her older sister Louvenia.[1] Breedlove married Moses McWilliams at the age of 14 and in 1885, they had a daughter Lelia. Widowed two years later, Sarah Breedlove McWilliams and her daughter moved to St. Louis, where she worked as a laundress and studied at night school.[2] Breedlove McWilliams suffered from hair loss, which inspired experimentation with homemade hair care remedies, resulting in products that promoted healthy hair growth.[3]

In 1906, while living in Denver, Colorado, Breedlove McWilliams married Charles Joseph Walker, who worked in advertising. She became known as Madam C.J. Walker and decided to sell her own hair care products under her new moniker.[4] The new name evoked a French flair to make her products more impressive to potential buyers as opposed to a “condescending name like ‘Aunt Sarah.’”[5] In 1908, while living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Walker founded Lelia College, named for her daughter, which offered a course in her hair care and beauty methods to aspiring “hair culturists”.[6] In 1910, the Walkers moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where she opened a laboratory and a beauty school. Walker and her husband divorced in 1912.[7]  

The Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company included a factory, and along with the laboratory and beauty school, manufactured Walker’s beauty products and trained her nationwide sales force of “beauty culturists” using the “The Walker System”. With the factory employees and thousands of African American women sales agents across the country, Walker ran a successful line of cosmetic and hair care products that not only promoted hair growth, but hair and skin beautification as well. Her agents made sales and educated customers on the importance of hygiene and presenting oneself in a clean and proper manner.[8] In 1916, her agents organized into the National Beauty Culturist and Benevolent Association of Madame C.J. Walker Agents, later known as the Madam C.J. Walker Hair Culturists Union of America, holding annual conventions.[9] Walker encouraged her sales agents to give back to improve society, giving rewards to the sales agents who made the largest philanthropic contributions in their African American communities.   

Walker was an active philanthropist and social activist in Indianapolis. In all areas of her life, she strove for and demanded equal rights, including filing suit against the Isis Theater for charging a higher admission rate (25 cents vs. 15 cents) for African American patrons. She protested segregation within the military during World War I and advocated for an African American army officer training camp.[10] Madam Walker donated to multiple African American charities and community organizations in Indianapolis such as the Senate Avenue YMCA, the Bethel AME Church, Flanner House, and Alpha Home. On a nationwide level, she contributed to campaigns to stop lynching and supported the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was newly- formed in 1909.[11]   

Throughout her life, Madam C.J. Walker worked tirelessly to create a better life for herself, her family, and her African American community in a segregated Indianapolis. The hard work and hardship took its toll, and she developed health issues in her late forties.[12] In April 1919, she passed away on May 25, 1919 at the age of 51.[13] At the time of her death, she was worth an estimated $600,000 (over $6 million in 2020 dollars), and was considered the wealthiest African American woman in America.[14] She is often lauded as the “America’s first self-made female millionaire."[15]

The legacy of Madam C.J. Walker is exemplified in the personal pride, entrepreneurship, and sense of civic responsibility that her products, business, and personal life instilled in African Americans, especially African American women, throughout the country. After Walker’s death, her daughter took over the Walker Manufacturing Company and in 1927, moved the factory and headquarters to the newly built Walker Building in Indianapolis. The building included a ballroom, theater, hair salon, other public spaces, and became an African American community cultural center.[16] The Walker Building, and the surrounding Indiana Avenue neighborhood, became a hub for the African American arts, culture, and jazz scene in segregated Indianapolis through the 1960s. A tangible reminder of her legacy, The Madame C.J. Walker Building was listed in the National Register for Historic Places in 1980 and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1991.[17]