Born in 1867, Sarah was the first of her siblings to be born under freedom. Her parents were slaves and so were her elder siblings. Unfortunately, her parents died while she was still young. Her older sister and her brother-in-law took her in but it turned out that she would be maltreated. Sarah decided to marry at a very young age of 14 in order to escape the maltreatment.
Her husband died when she was 20 years old after which she would move to St. Louis where her brother were. Here she met Charles Joseph Walker, a newspaper advertising salesman, who she would later marry.
The idea for creating beauty products designed for black women came to her when she developed a problem with her hair. Most African-American women during that era were having the same problem with their hair. She tried almost every cure for the scalp disease to no avail, so she began experimenting with her own remedy. Sara was able to develop a shampoo that contained sulfur that had effectively cured the disease and made her scalp healthier, thus producing healthy hair.
During those times, Sarah was working as a cook, but would later leave her job in order to focus on the production and marketing of her new product. She sold her product door-to-door and it quickly became popular. Soon after, her product would be advertised in a local newspaper.
Her company, Madam C.J. Walker was established in 1906 and her products started to become popular in almost every part of the country where there were concentrations of black women.
Today, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company still produces her original recipes. Their products are still sought after by women who have scalp problems.
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