Book Review: “Madam C. J. Walker Builds a Business”, by Denene Millner

You’ll be bigger than all these fields.
Bigger than the Mississippi River.

★★★☆☆

What can I say? I like this publisher!

In this book we follow the incredible story of Sarah Breedlove, the first female self-made millionare in America.

The youngest of five brothers and sisters, she was the first of her family to be born out of slavery. At that time racism was still pleaguing America (well, it sadly still does), with lynching yet to be considered a crime.

Sarah’s life will revolve around empowering herself and other Black women, and her legacy will still hold strong years after she passes away, in 1919.

In this book we follow her progress as an activist, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. There is little this woman hasn’t done for her family and her community.

I liked more than just discovering what this world record holder did, I liked the social issues that it briefly touches, managing not to interrupt the narrative flow at the same time.

The first being what was already mentioned: lynching was still going unpunished. Towards the end of the book it’s said that she partecipated in the protest of 1917 to eradicate this practice, but we’ll need to wait till as far as 2022 for it to become law.

Another discrimination highlighted by the book is how straight hair were seen as beautiful and “normal” between white people, compared to afro-textured hair. This social injustice persists today still, and it rampaged after the abolition of slavery in the United States as yet another attempt to put Black people in an inferior position compared to the white folks.

Taking this information into account, I find unclear the fact that Sarah uses the therm “kinky” to describe her own hair – it was considered a slur with which white people expressed disapproval towards afro-textured hair. Being Denene Millner an accomplished African-American author, I can only assume that it’s use was for the purpose of historical accuracy, or as a reappropriation of the word.

I also find it troublesome that at some point in the book, the author states: “The flakes of dandruff practically disappeared, and so did the embarassing bald spots.” I guess Millner was going for a subjective point of view, talking on Sarah’s behalf, but it also runs the risk of perpetuating harmful beauty standards.

It’s historically accurate and sad that as much as Sarah and Leila are disgusted by a hair product claiming straight hair is the perfect style, it will be no other than Sarah the one to wide the teeth of the hot comb, a tool used to straighten afro-textured hair.

They did a great job as always illustrating the life of a successful woman, and I thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a copy of their book in exchange for an honest review.

“We love America. It’s time America loves us back.”