Annie Malone's and CJ Walker's Beauty Empires
What's important about Annie Malone and what's important about Madam CJ Walker is as they built these empires, as they built these very successful beauty businesses, they were not just interested in the money that they could make. They saw their businesses as a testament to the race. And so they were very concerned in making sure that Black women had jobs. They employed Black women in their beauty schools, in their manufacturing plants, in their businesses. They saw their business as creating a greater economic base for Black women. One of the things that is really important about the Jim Crow era is to think about how it created some places for Black folks to hide. Some places where black folks can do things that white folks just dismissed as unimportant. Like, what could possibly be going on in there except some hair frying? What we really see when we look at the era of Jim Crow is that it became a place for Black women to think and to plot, and to plan for political purposes.
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