Octavia Spencer Is Starring in a Netflix Show About Historic Haircare Mogul Madam C.J. Walker

In amazing black girl magic news, Netflix has picked up a limited TV series about the first female self-made millionaire, Madam C.J. Walker, whose success was due to her line of haircare products in the early 1900s.

The show’s source material will be drawn from the book On Our Own Ground by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles, who will also serve as a consultant. Spencer and LeBron James will serve as producers on the show, as reported by Variety.

Born in Sarah Breedlove in Louisiana in 1867, Walker was an orphan who was married at 14 and widowed by age 20. After her hair began to fall out in the 1890s, she was reportedly driven to start selling hair products. She created innovative advertisements and partnered with her third husband ,who was working in the newspaper industry. Walker was ahead of her time, as she also utilized third-wave influencer marketing (women selling the products to other women) to make herself the first black woman millionaire in the United States. At the time of publication of her obituary, the New York Times reported that her fortune had run up to $1,000,000. She spent $10,000 every year for the education of young black men and women in Southern colleges ,and sent six youths to Tuskegee Institute every year.

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