A Village - Be-U-tiful Butterfly

Imagine at 29 years old while living in Texas….. Your husband is doing some research on his genealogy on www.ancestry.com call you in his office because he is working on yours also by looking up your grandmother who meant the world to you and he says “did you know that you were related to Madam CJ Walker her birth name was Sarah Breedlove” I’m like NO with a facial expression of confusion. So I’m like if there is one person who knows it’s my aunts so I text….. The reply was Yes we knew she was our cousin……

I once wrote about not having the capability to dream of the future as a child only identifying as an adult that I didn’t know how in my blog post entitled From Humble Beginnings. As the years have gone by, I believe that sharing the knowledge of our ancestors could have been a powerful tool in my adolescent years. If this history would have been verbally passed down I can only imagine, but if this knowledge would have been passed down at any point in my life other than me finding out online and being common knowledge amongst some of my family members it would have given me a sense of direction when I had this strong desire to be creative, maybe would’ve been an additive to my entrepreneurship foundation to grow the branches. Possibly instill some pride while empowering my self-esteem? My Grandmother Elzadie Breedlove Ingram was a successful Day Care business owner until her death bed, My aunt is a 2x published author, these are 2 of the few examples I have had up until I was 29 upon discovering online that I am a descendant of a woman who is the epitome of “BLACK HAIR”, born 2 years after the 13^th Amendment going on to become the first American woman self-made millionaire. The black community does an awesome job at killing our history by not wanting to have “A Conversation” whether it be good or bad. I would love to sit down and have a conversation with an elder who has knowledge of our lineage dating back to as far as the stories go. The Black community has done a huge disservice by not sharing verbal history to ALL of its family members, keeping the knowledge of our ancestors alive beyond important, passing down the sense of conformation to help find purpose in life or what could be considered the building blocks in knowing who the hell you are! Secrets aren’t good for the soul you can’t grow until you are honest about all aspects of your life. When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter and preparing mentally for how I wanted her to be raised I promised myself 3 things:

I would share my history with her the GOOD, the Bad & the Ugly

To Always be truthful and hold myself accountable no matter the situation

Never be ashamed of anything you have experienced

Madam CJ Walker

Between 1911 and 1919, during the height of her career, the company employed several thousand women as sales agents for its products. By 1917 the company claimed to have trained nearly 20,000 women. Dressed in uniform (white shirts and black skirts) while carrying black satchels, they visited houses around the United States and in the Caribbean offering Madam CJ Walker's hair pomade and other products packaged in tin containers carrying her image. Madam CJ Walker understood the power of advertising and brand awareness. Heavy advertising, primarily in African-American newspapers and magazines, Walker's name became even more widely known by the 1920s, after her death, as her company's business market expanded beyond the United States to five island’s Cuba, Costa Rica, Haiti, Panama, and Jamaica .

Madam C.J. Walker invented a line of African American hair products after suffering from a scalp ailment that resulted in her own hair loss. She promoted her products by traveling around the country giving lecture-demonstrations and eventually established Madame C.J. Walker Laboratories to manufacture cosmetics and train sales beauticians. In March 2016, Sundial Brands launched a new line called Madam C. J. Walker Beauty Culture that is sold exclusively in Sephora stores and at Sephora.com