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Madam C.J. Walker: Black History Month (part 3)

I first encountered the story of Madam C.J. Walker in a movie about her life called “Self Made” on Netflix, starring Octavia Spencer. It was a powerful movie about a dynamic woman. Debra Michals PhD, writing about Walker states:

“Struggling financially, facing hair loss, and feeling the strain of years of physical labor, Walker’s life took a dramatic turn in 1904. That year, she not only began using African American businesswoman Annie Turbo Malone’s “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower,” but she also joined Malone’s team of black women sales agents. A year later, Walker moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married ad-man Charles Joseph Walker, renamed herself “Madam C.J. Walker,” and with $1.25, launched her own line of hair products and straighteners for African American women, “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.”

An article on PBS.org states that Walker was the first Black American women that was a self-made millionaire. The piece goes on to say: “To keep her agents more loyal, Walker organized them into a national association and offered cash incentives to those who promoted her values. In the same way, she organized the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association in 1917. “I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself,” Walker said in 1914. “I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race.” 

Walker was tenacious, savvy, compassionate, entrepreneurial, and sacrificial. I hope yyou are inspired by her story. Check out the sources links at the end for more info.

The following biography is found at theundefeated.com

MADAM C.J. WALKER

“Because she found out you can never go broke working black women’s hair.”

ENTREPRENEUR, ACTIVISTb. 1867 – 1919

At first, it was all about hair and an ointment guaranteed to heal scalp infections. Sarah Breedlove – the poor washerwoman who would become millionaire entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker – was trying to cure dandruff and banish her bald spots when she mixed her first batch of petrolatum and medicinal sulfur.

But what began as a solution to a pesky personal problem quickly became a means to a greater end. With the sale of each 2-ounce tin of Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower, she discovered that her most powerful gift was motivating other women. As she traveled throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Central America, teaching her Walker System and training sales agents, she shared her personal story: her birth on the same plantation where her parents had been enslaved, her struggles as a young widow, her desperate poverty. If she could transform herself, so could they. In place of washtubs and cotton fields, Walker offered them beauty culture, education, financial freedom and confidence. “You have made it possible for a colored woman to make more money in a day selling your products than she could in a week working in white folks’ kitchens,” one agent wrote to her.

The more money Walker made, the more generous she became — $1,000 to her local black YMCA in Indianapolis, $5,000 to the NAACP’s anti-lynching fund. Scholarships for students at Tuskegee and Daytona Normal and Industrial institutes. Music lessons for young black musicians.

In 1917 at her first national convention, Walker awarded prizes to the women who sold the most products and recruited the most new agents. More importantly, she honored the delegates whose local clubs had contributed the most to charity. She encouraged their political activism in a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson, urging him to support legislation that would make lynching a federal crime.

Walker was labeled a “Negro subversive” by Wilson’s War Department because of her advocacy for black soldiers during World War I and her support of public protests against the East St. Louis, Illinois, riot.

By the time she died in 1919 in her Westchester County, New York, mansion, she had defied stereotypes, provided employment for thousands of women and donated more than $100,000 to civic, educational and political causes.

As a philanthropist and a pioneer of today’s multibillion-dollar hair care industry, she used her wealth and influence to empower others. One could say she was woke a hundred years ago. – A’Lelia Bundles

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Sources:

https://theundefeated.com/features/the-undefeated-44-most-influential-black-americans-in-history/#madam-cj-walker

https://www.biography.com/inventor/madam-cj-walker

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/madam-cj-walker

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/madam-walker-the-first-black-american-woman-to-be-a-self-made-millionaire/

https://www.netflix.com/title/80202462

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Mary McLeod Bethune: Black History Month (part 2)

I love discovering new heros. Black History Month (BHM) has created an opportunity for me to enter into the story of some amazing African American heros that have never crossed my path. I am humbled by the fortitude, drive, passion, grace, faithfulness, and influence of the men and women I am encountering in my search.

This week I am excited to share the story of Mary Jane McLeod Bethune. Here are a couple notable quotes:

“Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.“

“The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.“

Debra Michals PhD, writing for womenshistory.org, notes that she was “a champion of racial and gender equality, Bethune founded many organizations and led voter registration drives after women gained the vote in 1920, risking racist attacks.”

Dr. Bethune founded Bethune-Cookman University. The University website shares some of her story and highlights that, “Wherever Dr. Bethune saw a need, she found a way to meet that need and move society closer to her vision. When a black student was turned away from the hospital in Daytona Beach, she opened a hospital to serve the black community. When the nation mobilized resources for the first and second World Wars, she pressed for the integration of the American Red Cross and Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. She led voter registration drives and anti-lynching campaigns. Through it all Dr. Bethune relied on faith and prayer for guidance and inspiration, saying, Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.“

I hope that Mary McLeod Bethune becomes a hero for you too… ~Monty

The following biography information was found on: https://theundefeated.com/
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MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE

Because the ‘First Lady of the Struggle’ left us an indelible legacy of love, hope, and dignity…

CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, EDUCATOR b. 1875 – 1955

Though she was able-bodied, Mary McLeod Bethune carried a cane because she said it gave her “swank.”

An educator, civil rights leader and adviser to five U.S. presidents, the “First Lady of the Struggle” has been synonymous with black uplift since the early 20th century. She turned her faith, her passion for racial progress, and her organizational and fundraising savvy into the enduring legacies of Bethune-Cookman University and the National Council of Negro Women. She understood the intersections of education, optics and politics and was fierce and canny in using them to advance the cause of her people.

Bethune, the 15th of 17 children, grew up in rural South Carolina and started working in the fields as a young girl. She hoped to become a missionary in Africa after attending Scotia Seminary in North Carolina and Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, but was told black missionaries were unwelcome. So, she turned to educating her people at home, founding the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in 1904 with $1.50 and six students, including her young son.

Twenty years later, the school was merged with Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, Florida. In 1924, Bethune, one of the few female college presidents in the nation, became president of the National Association of Colored Women. A decade later, in a move to centralize dozens of organizations working on behalf of black women, Bethune founded the influential National Council of Negro Women

Bethune helped organize black advisers to serve on the Federal Council of Negro Affairs, the storied “Black Cabinet,” under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt considered Bethune one of her closest friends. Photos featuring her with the president or first lady ran prominently in black publications, helping to normalize the notion of black faces in high places.

Bethune worked to end poll taxes and lynching. She organized protests against businesses that refused to hire African-Americans and demonstrated in support of the Scottsboro Boys. She lobbied for women to join the military. She organized, she wrote, she lectured, and she inspired.

Perhaps her most enduring written work was her last will and testament:

I LEAVE YOU LOVE … I LEAVE YOU HOPE … I LEAVE YOU THE CHALLENGE OF DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE IN ONE ANOTHER … I LEAVE YOU A THIRST FOR EDUCATION … I LEAVE YOU RESPECT FOR THE USES OF POWER … I LEAVE YOU FAITH … I LEAVE YOU RACIAL DIGNITY … I LEAVE YOU A DESIRE TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY WITH YOUR FELLOW MEN … I LEAVE YOU FINALLY A RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. – Lonnae O’Neal

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Sources:
https://theundefeated.com/features/the-undefeated-44-most-influential-black-americans-in-history/#mary-bethune
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-mcleod-bethune
https://www.cookman.edu/about_BCU/history/our_founder.html

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Richard Allen: Black History Month (part 1)

Black History Month in North America is an opportunity to expand our understanding of an often “whitewashed” past. Specifically, BHM helps us celebrate and acknowledge how African Americans have been a crucial and overlooked part of the development of America’s political, social, and economic systems. This focus reminds us that this development came at a high cost to the African American community.

In an interview with The Banner Dr. Michelle Loyd-Paige (Executive Associate to the President for Diversity & Inclusion at Calvin University) shares that: “The U.S.A.—a place where many Africans were brought as slaves, kept in bondage, and denied basic civil rights. It’s a place where, still today, experiences of racism are pervasive. Nevertheless, the contributions of Africans/black Americans to this country have been numerous. These accomplishments should be celebrated and given proper credit—as should be the case for all people groups who have contributed to the building of this nation.“

In the interview, Dr. Loyd-Paige also notes that: “… it (Celebrating Black History Month) is a matter of truth-telling. The U.S. history that is often taught in our schools is very white. The history of black people in America rarely goes beyond slavery, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. Black History Month is an invitation and an opportunity to dig deeper into U.S. history and the accomplishments of African Americans.”

This year to celebrate Black History Month I am reading and sharing story on some of the amazing Black men and women I am learning about. My plan is to Highlight someone each week through the month of February. This week’s spotlight is Richard Allen. The following information is from: https://theundefeated.com

RICHARD ALLEN

Because God doesn’t segregate, but humans do…

PREACHER. ABOLITIONIST. FORMER SLAVE. EDUCATOR.b. 1760 – 1831

A Feb. 20, 1898, sermon by the Rev. John Palmer on Richard Allen’s place in African-American history reads:

“If true greatness consists in that self-sacrificing heroism and devotion which makes a man insensible and indifferent to his own personal welfare, interest, comfort and advantages; and to deny himself of all for the sake of others, and for the elevation and advancement of others, without a single promise of reward — we say, if these constitute greatness, then Richard Allen, the first bishop of the AME church, was great.”

Allen is considered the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in America. That church, now with a membership of more than 2.5 million people and 6,000 churches, was the country’s first independent black denomination.

Former slave. Born into servitude in 1760 in Philadelphia, “Negro Richard” earned $2,000 to buy his freedom and that of his brother in 1780. Richard Allen, the name he chose as a freedman, came of age during the American Revolution, just as the antislavery movement and denominational Christianity were gaining prominence.

Allen discovered religion after hearing a Methodist preacher at a secret gathering of slaves in Delaware. In his biography, The Life Experiences and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, he wrote, “I was awakened and brought to see myself, poor, wretched and undone, and without the mercy of God must be lost.”

Preacher. Allen, his wife Sarah and others opened the doors of Bethel AME Church on July 29, 1794, on the site of a converted blacksmith shop on Sixth Street in Philadelphia. Allen was ordained the church’s pastor. Driven to establish “Mother Bethel” by white Methodists’ segregation of blacks, Allen brought other black Methodist congregations in Philadelphia together in 1816. They elected Allen bishop, a position he held until his death in 1831.

Abolitionist. Allen focused his sermons on the freedom of slaves, cessation of colonization, education of youths and temperance. He created denominational groups to care for and educate the poor. His home and Bethel AME were stops on the Underground Railroad.

Educator. Recognizing that former slaves and freedmen needed education, he opened a day school for black children and a night school for adults. Allen published articles in Freedom’s Journal attacking slavery, colonialism and organizations that advocated the migration of blacks back to Africa. He authored three pamphlets about escaping the bonds of slavery, including An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice.

Allen’s legacy lives on today in the AME church’s work, whose motto is “God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family.” – John X. Miller

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Feature image and Dr. Michelle Loyd-Paige quotes are from: https://www.thebanner.org/features/2020/01/why-christians-should-observe-black-history-month

Richard Allen story from: https://theundefeated.com/features/the-undefeated-44-most-influential-black-americans-in-history/#richard-allen

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