Sarah Breedlove (Madam C.J. Walker)
About this Lesson
This lesson invites students to connect through self-care, self-portraiture, and Black American history by exploring the life and work of Sarah Breedlove, one of the most daring entrepreneurs of the 20th century. After losing her parents as a child and spending years doing backbreaking work as a servant, Sarah turned a personal struggle with her own hair and scalp into a revolutionary act of healing and community building. We discover how Sarah used business, beauty, and the bold decision to put her own face on her products to tell a story that the world had never seen told by a Black woman like her. Students will explore self-portraiture, the relationship between beauty and power, and the radical possibilities of entrepreneurship as community care. Students are empowered to see themselves as their own greatest subject, and to find in their own challenges, neighborhoods, and communities the same richness and opportunity that Sarah found in hers.
Lesson experience
1 | Meet Sarah Breedlove and discover how a daughter of sharecroppers, born just two years after the end of slavery, became known as America's first self-made female millionaire by solving a problem that no one else was willing to solve.
2 | Become a historian and analyze beauty advertisements from Sarah's time to today, uncovering who gets to define beauty, whose faces appear, and whose are left out.
3 | Create your own advertisement inspired by Sarah's boldest move: putting her own face on her products and building a brand that celebrated Black women's beauty on their own terms.
4 | Take a community walk to discover hidden opportunities in your neighborhood, just as Sarah discovered that a gap in the market could become the foundation for a movement.
5 | Make a pitch and share your community plan, practicing the same art of persuasion and vision that turned Sarah Breedlove's squiggle into something the whole world could see.