Madam Walker, as part of the first generation out of slavery, really was inventing the way that she operated in the world.
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.
Madame Walker was mythologized like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, but I want to show that she was fabulous on her own.
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.
For all my life, I've been trying to tell Madam's story and really it's a labor of love just to make sure people know about her and the empowerment she gave to other women.
For many years Madam Walker was just a little footnote in history. As a woman who made haircare products, she was really consigned to something trivial.
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.
She used her wealth and philanthropy to contribute to Black schools and colleges, she gave the largest gift the NAACP had ever received to it's anti-lynching fund... Madam Walker's life was one of transformation and re-invention.
Madam Walker's name gets thrown out as either the savior of black women's hair or she's the evil devil.
If New York is a wise guy, Paris a coquette, Rome a gigolo and Berlin a wicked uncle, then London is an old lady who mutters and has the second sight. She is slightly deaf, and doesn't suffer fools gladly.
