Born in a Cabin. Died a Millionaire.

Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867 on a Louisiana plantation, in the same cabin where her parents had been enslaved. She was the first child in her family born free. By seven she was an orphan. By twenty she was a widow with a daughter, washing other people's clothes for about a dollar and a half a day.

Most stories end there. Hers was just starting.

In her thirties, Sarah's hair began falling out. That was common then, many homes had no indoor plumbing, and washing your hair was a luxury. Instead of accepting it, she went looking for an answer. She worked for a Black hair-care entrepreneur named Annie Malone, learned the trade, and then built her own formula and her own name: Madam C.J. Walker.

She started with $1.25 and a product she believed in. She sold it door to door. She gave demonstrations in church basements and living rooms. When one town was sold, she moved to the next.

Here is the part that made her different. Walker didn't just sell a product, she built an army. She trained thousands of Black women as "Walker agents": saleswomen with their own routes, their own customers, and their own money. At a time when most work open to Black women was cleaning someone else's house, a Walker agent could out-earn a schoolteacher.