Madam c.j. walker accomplishments

Madam C.J. Walker’s Early Life

Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867. Her parents, Owen and Minerva, were Louisiana sharecroppers who had been born into slavery. Sarah, their fifth child, was the first in her family to be born free after the Emancipation Proclamation. Her early life was marked by hardship; she was orphaned at seven, married at 14 (to Moses McWilliams, with whom she had a daughter, A'Lelia, in 1885) and became a widow at 20.

Walker and 2-year-old A’Lelia moved to St. Louis, where Walker balanced working as a laundress with night school. She sang in the choir of the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and became active in the National Association of Colored Women. It was in St. Louis that she first met Charles J. Walker, the man who would become her second husband—and inspire the name of her eventual empire.

The Walker System

Walker was inspired to create haircare products for Black women Madam cj walker childhood pictures!