2. She Walker Was One of the Most Successful Black Entrepreneurs in US History
When Madam Walker died in 1919, her estate was worth over $600,000 – the equivalent of more than 8 million dollars today. She was the wealthiest African-American woman in the United States at the time of her death. In her tragically short life of only 51 years, Walker rose from the orphaned daughter of slaves to the first self-made female millionaire in the United States. Few Black Americans have been as or more successful in the century since.
Madam C. J. Walker was one of five children born to former slaves who had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. She was the first and only of their children to be born free; her siblings were born before the Emancipation Proclamation. She was orphaned in early childhood and raised by her sister, Louvenia. She married at 14 to escape an abusive brother in law and worked grueling jobs to feed her child when her husband died only two years later.
In 1913, her daughter opened a townhouse and salon in Harlem, New York designed by black architect Vertner Tandy. Her daughter remarked, “There is nothing equal to it. Not even on 5th Avenue.” This rapid rise from the penniless child of freed slaves to opening a grand building to rival the penthouses of 5th Avenue was unparalleled at the time, and still quite rare for Black Americans. Her story is often compared to Oprah due to the similar rise from a difficult child to massive wealth despite the constant presence of racism and sexism.