From the beginning, Madam C. J. Walker's message was as much about hair and beauty as it was about empowering other women. She knew that confidence and self-assurance are key ingredients to success, and that true beauty comes from within.
Both my parents worked at the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, with my dad eventually being hired by another company called Summit Laboratories that made chemical hair straighteners.
Madam Walker was an incredible woman, but she wasn't the only one of her time who was. She just took it to the highest height.
To her credit, Madam Walker discerned that black women wanted to conform to white Victorian models of beauty. She was aware of the double- sidedness of her products - helping black women appear more European in look, with straight hair - but she always maintained that she was simply selling products that promoted hair growth.
As much as any woman of the twentieth century, Madam Walker paved the way for the profound social changes that altered women's place in American society.
I hope that people will be inspired by Madam Walker's story. I hope that they will see her as a complex human being, and that they will want to dig more deeply, that they will want to know the details of her life.
I know of at least two black women who are billionaires: Sheila Johnson, who co-founded BET, and Oprah Winfrey. And I know of hundreds of black women whose net worth is over $1 million.
I've found that once people are introduced to Madam Walker's story, they are inspired but also perplexed about why she was omitted from their history lessons.
There are literally hundreds of stories about women of color that haven't been told that are amazing, fantastic, better than anything else.
Women of African descent, since the beginning of time, have altered their hair, decorated it and used it to designate status.
