Must See: Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker on Netflix + Mansion Tour

Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer stars as Madam C.J. Walker, the trailblazing African American haircare entrepreneur who was America's first female self-made millionaire. Inspired by the book, On Her Own Ground written by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles, the Netflix original series, SELF MADE: INSPIRED BY THE LIFE OF MADAM C.J. WALKER brings the uplifting story of this cultural icon to the screen for the first time. Against all odds, Walker overcame post-slavery racial and gender biases, personal betrayals, and business rivalries to build a ground-breaking brand that revolutionized black haircare, as she simultaneously fought for social change.

The four-part limited series also stars Blair Underwood as her husband C.J. Walker, Tiffany Haddish as her daughter Leila, Carmen Ejogo as Walker’s business rival Addie Monroe, Garrett Morris as Walker’s father-in-law, Kevin Carroll as her longtime lawyer Ransom and Bill Bellamy as Ransom’s cousin Sweetness.

Did you know you can tour her mansion, Villa Lewaro? You can, right here: Tour Villa Lewaro

 The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a special relationship with the Walker legacy.  Madame CJ Walker’s beautiful Italianate mansion in Irvington, New York, Villa Lewaro, is a National Trust Treasure, representing the most significant investment the Trust can make in the preservation of a historic site. 

Madam CJ Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on a plantation in Delta, Louisiana in 1867, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.  She was the first of her six siblings to be born into freedom.  Both her parents had died by the age of seven, so she began doing domestic work and went to live with her older sister in Mississippi.  After her first husband died and she had left her second, she subsequently married Charles Walker and then became known as Madame CJ Walker. 

Her popular hair loss pomade, shampoo and hot comb for black women were sold through a national salesforce of hundreds of women and a manufacturing company that employed thousands.  She also engaged in the innovative international distribution of her products at the turn of the 20th century.  She developed schools to teach her sales force styling tips and trained women to become “beauty culturists,” as she called them, or beauticians.

Walker was also a leader and generous donor to the women’s suffrage movement, the anti-lynching movement, and many prominent African American organizations of her day. When she died, she left a fortune of $600,000 worth about $13.3. million by today’s valuation.

She also left a beautiful Italianate mansion, called Villa Lewaro, named by Italian opera star Enrico Caruso, as a symbol of the possibilities available to anyone with the will to succeed.  It was purchased recently by Richilieu Dennis, an African entrepreneur, owner of Sundial Brands and Essence magazine. The house will be used to develop a think tank for the start-ups of African American women. 

 As a group, African American women outpace the start-up initiative of many of their peer groups.  While start-ups have fallen in the U.S. recently, the start-ups of black women have risen 164 percent.  However, women receive only 2 percent of all start-up capital, and African American women receive less than one percent.  Dennis’s think tank would help develop strategies to combat these capital limitations.