0:02 [SPEAKER_02]: In time, her local business brought in enough of a salary that she was able to quit working as a long dress. 0:09 [SPEAKER_02]: Her level of success was already admirable, and Sarah had no intention of keeping it at a local level. 0:15 [SPEAKER_02]: She knew there was a growing national market that needed to be tapped into, but she lacked the business knowledge to pursue it. 0:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Opportunity came knocking on her door. 0:24 [SPEAKER_02]: She met Charles Joseph Walker. 0:26 [SPEAKER_02]: He was a Denver newspaperman who took a liking to Sarah. 0:30 [SPEAKER_02]: They married in 1906, though their marriage would only last a few years. 0:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Walker opened Sarah's eyes to advertising and promotional approaches to business. 0:39 [SPEAKER_02]: adds for the products of Madam CJ Walker as Sarah and our call to herself and her brand began appearing in publications across the country. 0:48 [SPEAKER_02]: This is how her male order business began for a six week treatment trial of her wonderful hair grower. 0:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Interested parties were instructed to male $1.75 with male order settingly increasing. 1:00 [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah left Alila in charge of operations in Denver, so she could travel around the country. 1:05 [SPEAKER_02]: She continued to sell her products door to door while making connections with pivotal African-American social figures who could endorse her business, I word of mouth. 1:15 [SPEAKER_02]: But Sarah was well aware that the more sales increased, the more helping hands she would need to sustain the business. 1:21 [SPEAKER_02]: In 1908, she opened a branch office and beauty school, called Lila College in Pittsburgh. 1:28 [SPEAKER_02]: The school enabled Sarah to train black hair stylists and beauticians in the walker system of hair care and beauty. 1:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Once the training was well underway, Alila once again stepped in as a manager, so Sarah could travel and build upon her growing network of connections. 1:43 [SPEAKER_02]: One place that left a vivid impression on her was Indianapolis. 1:47 [SPEAKER_02]: The Midwest City was centrally located and at the time had a reliable transportation system. 1:53 [SPEAKER_02]: A few other mid-sized cities could rival. 1:56 [SPEAKER_02]: In 1910, Madam Walker decided to consolidate the Denver and Pittsburgh offices and make Indianapolis the central headquarters of the Walker Manufacturing Company. 2:06 [SPEAKER_02]: This enterprise helped the business reach a whole new level at headquarters. 2:10 [SPEAKER_02]: A new factory was built to mass-produce Madam C.J. 2:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Walker hair solutions, facial creams, and cosmetics. 2:17 [SPEAKER_02]: The complex also featured another beauty school to train hair culturalists, research and production labs in a sales force training center. 2:27 [SPEAKER_02]: And just like that, with this new expansion, Madam Walker was quickly building an empire. 2:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Her business ventures aligned with the American Tradition of Enterprise during a time when Algebra viewers were predominantly white. 2:40 [SPEAKER_02]: From manufacturing the company's trademark products and her own factory to employ a nationwide sales force and owning the beauty salons that used and promoted her products, everything led to straight profits. 2:53 [SPEAKER_02]: The women on Madame Walker sales force were referred to as Walker Agents. 2:58 [SPEAKER_02]: All 3,000 agents were African American women. 3:01 [SPEAKER_02]: The agents traveled door-to-door in the U.S. and Caribbean communities, working in sales for the Madame Walker Empire, afforded these women an incredibly rare opportunity, during an otherwise racially intolerant and highly segregated, pre-World War I era. 3:17 [SPEAKER_02]: At the time, the only hope Black women had, of rising out of poverty, was to marry a rich man, landing a position as a Walker agent, gave women a chance at financial independence. 3:29 [SPEAKER_02]: While it must have been empowering to grant women opportunities, she personally never had, Madam Walker was also resolute on helping others in need, so she hascribed her philanthropic values. 3:41 [SPEAKER_02]: onto her employees. 3:43 [SPEAKER_02]: She took an ingenious approach to encourage agents to take part in social activism and charitable donations. 3:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Walker organized her agents into clubs and enticed the most generous clubs with a cash prize incentive. 3:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Clubs across the country came together in Philly, for the 1917 Madame C. J. Walker Hare Culturalist Union of America, one of the first national meetings of business women, while Madame Walker's accumulating wealth afforded her a lavish lifestyle. 4:15 [SPEAKER_02]: her philanthropic contributions were continuous. 4:19 [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the causes she supported were homes for the elderly, black educational institutions, black owned businesses, the NAACP, and the colored YMCA of Indianapolis. 4:31 [SPEAKER_02]: She also regularly made contributions to her friends institutions. 4:36 [SPEAKER_02]: such as Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute, Lucy Laney's Haynes Institute, and Mary McLeod Bethoons, Daytona Normal, and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls. 4:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Using her own funds, Madam Walker also had a school built for girls in West Africa and provided regular funding. 4:56 [SPEAKER_02]: She was so prolific in her political and social activism that she was invited to speak at the National Negro Business League Convention in 1912, undoubtedly she was the only woman in attendance. 5:09 [SPEAKER_02]: She introduced herself at the podium by saying 5:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a woman who came from the cotton fields of the south. 5:16 [SPEAKER_01]: I was promoted from there to the wash tub. 5:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Then I was promoted to the cook kitchen. 5:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And from there, I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations. 5:28 [SPEAKER_02]: It was a modest synopsis of all she had endured to reach the pentagraph success. 5:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Walker looked toward expansion once again, and a chance encounter on a business trip made that possible. 5:41 [SPEAKER_02]: She met Freeman B. Ranson. 5:44 [SPEAKER_02]: a Columbia University law student, while he was working as a train porter between semesters. 5:50 [SPEAKER_02]: She stayed in touch with the young man, and after he graduated, she offered him a job as a manager of her Indianapolis operations. 5:58 [SPEAKER_02]: He took her up on the offer, enabling Madam Walker to move to New York, a Lila soon joined her, and in 1913 she opened another beauty school in Harlem. 6:08 [SPEAKER_02]: One cause Madam Walker was particularly passionate about, was the anti-alienching movement. 6:13 [SPEAKER_02]: When she donated $5,000 to the NAACP's anti-alienching fund, it was the largest donation ever received by an individual at that time. 6:22 [SPEAKER_02]: In July of 1917, the news broke that a white mob murdered more than 3 dozen blacks during a riot in East St. Louis, Illinois. 6:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Walker joined 10,000 Black New Yorkers who marched down Fifth Avenue to protest lynching and Jim Crow laws. 6:39 [SPEAKER_02]: If you days later, along with a group of Black community leaders in Harlem, Madam Walker visited the White House to deliver a petition advocating for legislation that would make lynching a federal crime. 6:52 [SPEAKER_02]: After President Woodrow Wilson refused to see the group, they descended on Capitol Hill to lobby senators and House representatives. 7:00 [SPEAKER_02]: A Republican representative from St. Louis, Leonidas C. Dyer introduced the dire anti-lensching bill in 1918. 7:07 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until 1922 that the bill made it to the House of Representatives, but it was blocked by Southern Democrats. 7:14 [SPEAKER_02]: To this day, no such anti-lensching legislature has been passed. 7:18 [SPEAKER_02]: By 1917, the Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company was the largest black owned business in the country, with annual revenues of up to $500,000. 7:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Walker's possessions reflected her well-earned social status. 7:33 [SPEAKER_02]: She drove around Harlem in an electric car, enjoyed fine dining, paired the latest fashions with expensive jewelry, and owned townhouses, in both New York and Indiana. 7:45 [SPEAKER_02]: Her greatest asset was Villa LaWaro. 7:47 [SPEAKER_02]: In 1916, Madame Walker commissioned an Italian-style villa to be built in Irvington, New York. 7:54 [SPEAKER_02]: The architect, Vertener Tandy, had the distinction of being the first African-American architect registered in New York. 8:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Irvington is located in Westchester County on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, about 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan due to its proximity to the Big Apple and its scenic river views. 8:13 [SPEAKER_02]: The village of Irvington has historically attracted the wealthy. 8:16 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, the stretch of road where Villa Nguarro was built was often referred to as Millionaires Row, socialites, like the Aster's and Rockefellers, they've closed by. 8:26 [SPEAKER_02]: The Manchin itself contained 34 rooms, which included a gymnasium, a kitchen and pantry, a servant dining room, and storage faults. 8:36 [SPEAKER_02]: It was the kind of opulence Madam Walker couldn't have possibly dreamed of owning in her childhood. 8:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Villa LaWaro wasn't just a home for Madam Walker and Elila. 8:47 [SPEAKER_02]: It also served as a gathering place to discuss race relations among members of the community, along with key figures from the Harlem Renaissance. 8:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Langston Hughes and W.E.E.B. 8:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Du Boiz in her home, Madam Walker hosted dinners to promote Black Rights Organization, 9:06 [SPEAKER_02]: she was more determined than ever to strengthen the black community by bringing people together. 9:12 [SPEAKER_02]: But the time she was in her early fifties, her health began to deteriorate, a lifetime of taxing physical work, and packed schedules took its toll. 9:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Walker's doctor advised her to slow down the pace in which she worked because she had dangerously high blood pressure. 9:30 [SPEAKER_02]: She was too much of a go-getter to listen and collapsed during a business trip to St. Louis. 9:35 [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Walker had to be transported back home to the villa by private railroad car. 9:40 [SPEAKER_02]: After that, she had no choice but to rest. 9:43 [SPEAKER_02]: On May 25, 1919, after living in the opulent villa for only a year, she passed away at home as a result of kidney failure. 9:52 [SPEAKER_02]: and complications related to hypertension. 9:55 [SPEAKER_02]: At the time of her death, Sarah Breedloves, S. State, was an estimated value of around $700,000, or roughly $9 million today, according to the Consumer Price Index and Afflation Calculator. 10:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Indiana Wesleyan University provides accessible education for every chapter of life. 10:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Traditional students learn live and lead the way through rich community on IWU's beautiful 350-acre campus in Marion, Indiana. 10:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Adult learners choose the flexibility of 100% online classes in over 150 programs with support from professors who are experts in their field of study and deeply care for student success in academics and spiritual formation. 10:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Discover the Wayhead at IWU. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Visit DiscoverThe Way.com to learn how. 10:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah Breedlove was buried in Woodland Cemetery in the Bronx. 10:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Both her gravesite and Villa LaWaro were named National Historic Landmarks. 10:48 [SPEAKER_02]: As for Madam Walkers' will, it declared that two thirds of her estate be given to charitable and educational institutions, a sum that totaled more than $14 million today. 11:00 [SPEAKER_02]: The other one-third went to Elila, who took her mother's place as president of the company. 11:05 [SPEAKER_02]: A clause in Sarah's will also specify that her company must always have a female president. 11:11 [SPEAKER_02]: After her mother's death, Elila was committed to carrying on her mother's legacy. 11:16 [SPEAKER_02]: She maintained the operations of the beauty school, and so on, and rented out the upstairs of the villa for political and social events. 11:24 [SPEAKER_02]: Elila continued to living in the mansion until 11:27 [SPEAKER_02]: When she died of a cerebral hemorrhage caused by hypertension, Sarah breedloves contribution to African American communities and society as a whole is immeasurable. 11:38 [SPEAKER_02]: Her legacy continues to serve as an inspiration. 11:41 [SPEAKER_02]: December of 2018 marked the Centennial of Villa Luarra, as well as the date the new voice's foundation acquired the property. 11:51 [SPEAKER_02]: The foundation intends to use the space as a 11:56 [SPEAKER_02]: The official website, MadamCJWalker.com is run by Avila Bundles, a biographer who wrote on her own ground, the life and times of MadamCJWalker. 12:08 [SPEAKER_02]: She is the great great granddaughter of Sarah Breedlove. 12:12 [SPEAKER_01]: She said Sarah once commented, There is no royal flower-stroom path to success, and if there is, I haven't found it. 12:20 [SPEAKER_01]: For if I have accomplished anything in life, it's because I have been willing to work hard. 12:26 [SPEAKER_02]: Those timeless words serve as a reminder to young entrepreneurs of color everywhere. 12:32 [SPEAKER_02]: About the power of tenacity in pursuing a dream, against all odds, Madam Walker transcended the tribulations, the world bestowed upon her, by having a perspective that was well ahead of her time.
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