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TV series portrays St. Louis-inspired life of Madam C.J. Walker, beauty products mogul

Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove. She married at 14, then came to St. Louis at 20, after her first husband died, to join her brothers who worked as barbers.
Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles
Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove. She married at 14, then came to St. Louis at 20, after her first husband died, to join her brothers who worked as barbers.

In 1888, a young, African-American woman left Louisiana to join her brothers in St. Louis.

The future Madam C.J. Walker earned a living by doing laundry, then began selling beauty products. Eventually she founded her own company and went on to become one of the nation’s first black, female millionaires. Warner Brothers is producing a TV series for Netflix about her life.

Walker’s time in St. Louis was transformational, according to her great-great granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles, who wrote the book on which the series is based.

“If I were writing the script, and I were in total control, St. Louis would be really critical,” Bundles said.

Drawing inspiration from church

After Walker arrived in St. Louis at 20, she became active in the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, near Page and Goodfellow boulevards. The church was an important community hub and center of activism and eventually became the birthplace of the St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP.

“It was the women of the community there who really inspired her,” Bundles said.

In St. Louis, Walker also met Annie Malone, who had already begun a beauty-products business. Walker sold Malone’s wares before creating her first signature product called “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.” The sulfur-based ointment was touted as a method for eliminating dandruff and healing scalp infections.

In 1917, Madam C.J. Walker hosted the first national convention of what she called her beauty culturists at Philadelphia’s Union Baptist Church. Walker is in the middle of the front row wearing an aproned dress.
Credit Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles
In 1917, Madam C.J. Walker hosted the first national convention of what she called her beauty culturists at Philadelphia’s Union Baptist Church. Walker is in the middle of the front row wearing an aproned dress.

After 17 years in St. Louis, Walker moved to Denver, where she established her company before building a headquarters and factory in Indianapolis. She opened several beauty schools around the country including one on Market Street in St. Louis.

Bundles, who is an executive consultant in the series, expects it will be released in 2019. That will be nearly two decades after Bundles published her book, “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker.” A string of films paved the way for the TV project, Bundles said.

“In the last few years, there have been some really successful movies from ‘12 Years a Slave’ and ‘The Butler’ and obviously ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Get Out,’” Bundles said. “And I think it’s very clear now that topics that involve people of color can be very commercially successful.”

The importance of black hair and black ownership

Walker’s story is much more complicated than a tale of entrepreneurship, according to Rebecca Wanzo, a Washington University professor focused on women’s studies and African-American culture.

“The treatment of African-American women’s hair is incredibly important in the history of African-American culture,” Wanzo said. “Inserting herself into that industry in the early 20th century really made a difference in terms of black people having a really big market share in the treatment of black hair. Previously, it was white pharmaceutical companies.”

Walker was also instrumental in providing jobs for black women.

This photo shows the class of 1939 graduates of the Walker Beauty School on Market Street in St. Louis.
Credit Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles
This photo shows the class of 1939 graduates of the Walker Beauty School on Market Street in St. Louis.

“She also trained African-American women to do hair, where they could be working for themselves, and working for black people as opposed to domestics for white people,” Wanzo said.

Actor Octavia Spencer, who became well-known after co-starring in the movie “The Help” and further established herself in films including “Hidden Figures,” is producing the Walker series. Spencer will also play the part of Madam Walker.

Spencer’s rise in the industry may have been a factor in launching the Walker TV series, according to Wanzo.

“Part of how projects starring black people get made is that black people have a role in being producers of properties and bringing these properties to networks and corporations,” Wanzo said.

Wanzo hopes the series will accurately portray the many ways in which black entrepreneurs were blocked from success in the early 20th century.

“As opposed to just an ‘uplift narrative’: you know, ‘She wanted to build a business; she did. And there were some racist obstacles but then she overcame them,’” Wanzo said. “That would be the failure, to me.”

This photos shows Madam Walker at the wheel of her Waverly Electric.
Credit Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles
This photos shows Madam Walker at the wheel of her Waverly Electric.

Follow Nancy on Twitter: @NancyFowlerSTL

Nancy is a veteran journalist whose career spans television, radio, print and online media. Her passions include the arts and social justice, and she particularly delights in the stories of people living and working in that intersection.