The View from My Seat Observations & Viewpoints on the Netflix Miniseries “Self-Made”

As the Founding President of the Annie Malone Historical Society, I have spent a lot of time over the last several days monitoring responses to the recently released Netflix miniseries, “Self-Made.” I have read countless e-mails and online articles, fielded phone calls, received text messages, Facebook and blog posts, and discovered more about twitter and Instagram than I ever knew. Two things are clear. People have strong opinions and feelings about what and how information was presented in this miniseries. No matter if the people lived in the St. Louis community or out of it, the miniseries got a lot of people talking.

Pull Your Pants Up

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — The owner of Oakland’s Pull Up Your Pants Barber Shop is trying to change attitudes, one young customer and one saggy pair of jeans at a time. Some do men's health clinics in the barbershop, some do community cleanup and some even do free haircuts for back to school and book bag giveaways. Well, they are having a 'Belt Drive' for kids at Pull Up Your Pants Barber Shop, Oakland CA. Find a problem in the community and dedicate yourself toward solving it. That's social responsibility.

Little Known Black History Fact: Christina M. Jenkins

In 1951, Christina M. Jenkins submitted a patent “hair weave.” A former wig company employee, Jenkins created a new process of adding synthetic extensions by sewing hair onto cornrows. Similar to Madam C.J. Walker, she opened her own cosmetology school to teach others her technique. Christina Mae Thomas was born Christmas Day in 1920, although there are conflicting dates regarding her day of birth. She was born in Louisiana but details of her early life are scarce. What is known is that she graduated from Leland College near Baton Rouge with a degree in science in 1943. Jenkins started work at a wig manufacturer in Chicago and in 1949, she began working on a technique to make a more secure fitting wig. She then moved to Malvern, Ohio and began studying how sewing in commercial hair with a person’s natural hair added length and body. Thus in 1951, Jenkins filed a patent for her “HairWeev” technique, which was granted in 1952. Jenkins owned and operated her Christina’s Hair

Women’a History Month

March is the Women’s History Month celebrated globally to highlight the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. The month corresponds with the International Women’s Day

Addie in Self Made Is Based on Beauty Pioneer Annie Turnbo Malone

Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker is a four-part mini-series that premieres on Netflix on Friday, March 20. Carmen Ejogo plays Addie Monroe, Sarah Walker's (Octavia Spencer) mentor-turned-competitor in the hair industry. The fictional Addie is based on Annie Turnbo Malone, a beauty pioneer and a self-made millionaire herself. Self Made, a new mini-series on Netflix, is really the story of two self-made American millionaires. Sarah Walker, who made a fortune with her Madam C.J. Walker hair products, is the focal point of the show. However, Walker only got into that industry by working for Annie Turnbo Malone, another successful hair care entrepreneur who may have become a millionaire before Walker. In the dramatized Netflix series, Annie Turnbo Malone's character is renamed "Addie Monroe," and played by Carmen Ejogo. But Addie and Annie have many similarities, including the fact that Walker (played by Octavia Spencer) worked for her before starting her own company. While Addie appears in all four episodes of Self Made, she's constantly in Disney villain mode, toggling between treacly sweet and outright vicious. She spends her time devising increasingly complicated plots to thwart Walker's growing empire. The worst sin of all? Addie refused to recognize that when one Black woman succeeded, she lifted up other Black women. So does Addie match up to her real-life inspiration, Annie Malone? Not at all. Self Made fails to tell Malone's full story—which is also one of a self-made millionaire using her platform to champion other Black women. Here's what you need to know about Annie Malone and her relationship to Madam C.J. Walker. Annie Turnbo Malone was the child of former slaves. In 1869, two years after Walker was born, Annie Turnbo Malone was born to two former slaves in Metropolis, Illinois. She was the tenth of 11 children. Tragically, when Malone was a toddler, her parents, Roger and Isabella Turnbo, fell ill and died in close succession. Malone moved to Peoria, Illinois and was raised by her older sister, Ada Moody. Her close relationships with her sisters went hand-in-hand with her business acumen. As a young girl, Malone loved playing with her sisters' hair. Eventually, that became her career. Malone never graduated from high school—but it served its purpose. While attending public school in Peoria, Illinois, Malone developed a love for chemistry. After withdrawing from school due to illness, Malone continued to experiment with chemicals. She learned about the natural world's resources by "gathering herbs with an old relative, an herb doctor [whose] mixtures fascinated [her]," per Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C. J. Walker. Specifically, Malone was interested in creating a product that could grow and straighten hair without damaging the hair or scalp. Before Malone's product—which she called her Wonderful Hair Grower—women used bacon grease, heavy oils, and butter to straighten hair, all of which were very damaging. According to the book Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture, the Wonderful Hair Grower contained sage and egg rinses, and drew from recipes of the folk tradition. In 1902, Malone moved to St. Louis, Missouri. With the help of two assistants, Malone sold products door to door, and offered demonstrations for how women could incorporate Malone's hair grower and patented straightening combs into their routine. Sarah Walker, then Sarah McWilliams from her first marriage, was one of Malone's first employees, likely around 1903. Already popular in St. Louis, Malone's business expanded after she opened a store during the 1904 World's Fair and demonstrated her techniques to people from around the world. She began marketing her products throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean. In 1906, Malone trademarked her company's name, "Poro." Poro was either a reference to a West African organization devoted to disciplining and enhancing the body—or a combination of the surname from her first marriage, "Pope," and her sister's name, "Roberts." Her motto was, “Clean scalps mean clean bodies.” In 1918, Malone established Poro Beauty College, the first cosmetology school specializing in Black hair. She had 175 employees, and launched many more careers. After studying at Poro College, women started their own beauty stops and businesses—making Malone's major avenue for social mobility, as Black women were barred from all work but domestic labor in St. Louis at the time. Located in the Ville, a predominantly Black neighborhood, Poro College was more than a beauty school—it was a "center of community activity," per a 1926 booklet called Poro in Pictures. Poro College's complex, estimated to have cost $500,000, housed classrooms, a factory, sewing rooms, barber shops, dining halls, a gymnasium, bakery, chapel, roof garden, and 500-seat auditorium. "The Poro Family," as the community was called, offered social activities and classes for members, as well as provided welfare. After a tornado devastated St. Louis in 1927, Poro College became a rescue center that sheltered, closed, and fed 5,000 people in need. Poro College's ideals of "personal beauty and tidiness, self-resect, thrift, and industry" spread to other American cities. According to The Southern, Poro College established 32 schools throughout the U.S. and had 75,000 women agents around the world (including the Philippines, South America, and Africa). In 1930, Poro College relocated to Chicago, where it took up an entire block between 44th and South Parkway. Malone was a millionaire by the end of the first World War. By 1920, her company was worth an estimated $14 million. Adjusted to 2020's standards, that would make her worth $259 million. However, A'Lelia Bundles, Walker's descendent and biographer, doubts the veracity of that estimate. Since Poro did not keep careful records, Bundles said "there is no way to prove the claims about Malone's wealth." What we do know? Malone was famously generous with her fortune. She donated to Howard University, Tuskegee Institute, St. Louis's Pine Street YMCA, and the St. Louis Colored Children's Home, which bears her name today. She extended the same generosity to her employees. As legend has it, Malone gave diamond rings to agents who had been with the company for over five years, and rewarded those who accrued savings with cash rewards. And a few other factors. The trouble began in 1927, Malone went through a costly divorce from her second husband, Aaron Malone, who demanded half her fortune. She ended up paying him $200,000. After the divorce, Malone moved the business to Chicago for a fresh start—but trouble followed her. Poro thrived through the Depression and WWII, but could not withstand Malone's back taxes and a lawsuit from a disgruntled former employee. By 1943, Malone owed the government $100,000 for unpaid real estate and excise taxes, according to an article by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1951, the government and creditors seized Poro. Unlike Walker, who was rich until the day she died in 1919, Malone had lost most of her fortune by the end of her life. According to the Chicago Public Library, her estate was listed at $100,000 at the time of her death. She died of a stroke in 1957 at the age of 87. While overshadowed by her protege, Malone's legacy is just as important as Walker's.

The Problem With “The Facts About Madam C.J. Walker And Annie Malone” And The Problem With “Self Made” Netflix Series

Spoiler Alert / Disclaimer Let me first start with saying this to any Madam C.J. Walker admirers, and to those who maybe heard of Annie Malone (many have not), this is not an attempt to be petty, or report anything against Walker. This is a rebuttal to the essay that was written by Madam C.J. Walker’s great, great granddaughter titled, “The Facts about Madam C.J. Walker and Annie Malone”. When one considers the oppressive times that Madam C.J. Walker and African Americans lived under in this country, and that she was a child of slaves, and a woman when women had very little to no rights, what she accomplished from her professional start in the haircare and beauty products business in 1906 to her death in 1919, can only be described as “astonishing”. And to refer to Madam Walker’s great, great grand-daughter’s own views about Walker’s legacy, her philanthropy and training for women to learn a skill that allowed them the ability to provide quality of life for their families, was even more astonishing. For those who plan to watch the Netflix series, “Self Made” that premiered March 20, 2020, I will allude to a few scenes in the series, so this is a spoiler alert to probably wait to read this article. Just as Walker gave back, so too was she given this opportunity to do better for herself and for her daughter. To go from being a laundress, making hardly any money at all, to becoming one of the wealthiest women in America. She owed that to Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone, who Walker was treated by for her scalp condition that was causing her hair to fall out, and who she learned the haircare business from. This is significant because most of us have been under the belief that Madam C.J. Walker is the “mother” of the haircare industry and the first “self-made” African-American millionairess. This has angered many who know of Annie Malone’s impact and know that Walker was not the first. There were other haircare entrepreneurs who helped shape what is now a multi-billion dollar industry that should be mentioned in this context. Women like, Sarah Spencer Washington and Madam N.A. Franklin, for example. If you look at the chronological order of these ladies professionally, Annie Malone would come first. The other significant matter of note that cannot be simply dismissed, is that the relationship between Walker and Malone was a profound one for Walker (then Sarah Breedlove), who came to St. Louis in the early 1900’s to live with her brothers, who were both Barbers (and there is a belief that one, or both, were graduates of Annie’s Poro College), but who certainly knew Annie and introduced Breedlove to Malone. Sarah Breedlove, being ten years older than Malone, would be very impressed with Annie, because Malone was already a successful business woman in 1902 when they met and refined in the ways Walker wanted for herself and her daughter. It could be argued that Malone was one of the most significant women in Sarah Breedlove’s life, next to her daughter, A’Lelia Walker. So, for me, this outright suppressing of Annie Malone’s name or mentioning her as a footnote, diminishes the impact and importance she was to Sarah Breedlove, who would go on to great success on her own as Madam C.J. Walker. And, the impact was also felt by Madam Walker’s daughter, A’Lelia Walker, who inherited the Walker empire along with longtime Walker attorney, Ransom, so much so, that when the Walker Theater (now the Walker Legacy Center) was built in 1927 in Indianapolis, IN, the exterior structure of the building was a near design replica of the Poro College building in St. Louis that was built and opened in 1918 by Malone. That building has since been demolished, but was considered a state of the art structure for its time. Every service to patrons and students, from education, product development, social gatherings and meetings, to theater performances that Annie instituted in the Poro College headquarters, was emulated at the Walker Theater. The ‘Self Made’ Netflix series (which premiered on March 20, 2020), uses the disclaimer in it’s title that the series is “based on true events” about the life of Madam C.J. Walker, which gives the producers artistic license to create fictional situations and “composite” characters to further their story arc. And this is exactly what they have done. In the Netflix series, a “composite” character named Addie Monroe (note the initials, A.M.) was created to replace Annie Malone in the series, and they “totally” made Addie Monroe a cartoonish villainess that stalked Madam Walker once Walker broke ties to her. Whether this was intentional or not, they vilified Annie Malone. In “The Facts about Madam C.J. Walker and Annie Malone”, the notion that this long time debate as to who was the first millionairess has become “petty, contrived and counterproductive” is disingenuous as this statement comes from the very person that, if she did not coin this, has supported the reporting of Walker as being the first, and who now acknowledges Malone as an “equal” to Walker, as suggested in her very recent essay we are discussing. I agree that it is counterproductive to a 40 year agenda to supplant in the minds, of even scholars, that Madam Walker was thee pioneer of the haircare industry. Walker herself refused to acknowledge Annie Malone’s impact on her life. During the 1913 (1912 is the year cited in “The Facts about Madam C.J. Walker and Annie Malone”) National Negro Business League conference in Philadelphia, a Who’s Who of successful African American entrepreneurs, civic, and religious leaders annual national convention for which Madam C.J. Walker was a guest speaker, she spoke of her success in the haircare business and her beginnings without acknowledging Annie Malone who was sitting there amongst the esteem audience. It was reported that Annie, without a show of anger or contempt, got up and left the convention hall while Madam Walker was speaking. Her entourage followed her out of the room, including James Breedlove’s wife, Hattie Breedlove, who remained with Malone and not with her husband’s sister, Sarah Breedlove, for many years. Hattie Breedlove even moved with Annie Malone in 1930 when Malone left St. Louis for good and returned to her home state of Illinois (again, James Breedlove was one of the brothers Madam C.J. Walker had come to live with in St. Louis, and who introduced the two ladies).

Hair Radio

Kerry Two-Time Internet Radio Star Award Winner Mr. Kerry Hines Kerry@HaiRadio.com Direct Office Line: 347-587-3213 HairNationExpo.Biz - LIVE Hair Event -3 Big Days Kerrapy.com - Kerry Hines Haircare SalonTVNetwork.com - 24-7 Hair & Beauty TV Broadcasting Hair & Beauty Promotions, PR & Marketing, Broadcasting Tele-Conference Line 1-515-603-3116, Access 1061492# 'Like Us' on Facebook 'The HaiRadio Show' "The Hair Radio Morning Show" 6a-9a EST, LISTEN on Cell ..Call 516-453-9458 during LIVE broadcast. Twitter @Hairadio @HairadioSchool @MyHairNation @IntheBlackness1 YOUTUBE: Follow Us At -"Kerry Hines" Our Core Principles: Working to achieve excellence in delivery and satisfaction of our products and services! Always have a genuine interest to assist others with their vision. Always seek ways to help the community at large. Always promote opportunities for today's youth as they are the business leaders of tomorrow.

VIP EXTENSIONS

We Are Moving Dear Vendors and Customers,  Please know that we are closing our warehouse and moving by end of the month. Our new address will be Hair & Accessories inc. 8349 N.W. 36th Street Doral, Florida 33166 Our email and telephone/fax lines will be the same. We will be liquidating our synthetic and blended hair collections to focus only on 100% Human hair items and our newly developed Collections of eyelash extensions and related accessories. For liquidation items it will be sold by pallets only. If you have any interest please let us know as these items will be warehoused in a 3 PL facility ready to be shipped anywhere in the world. We are also liquidating all of our Warehouse racking material including warehouse machinery, furniture for office and showroom. If interested please visit our Opa locka facility by the end of month to make a deal on related items. During these times of uncertainty, we are hopeful that you and your families and businesses will overcome the current challenges.  I appreciate every single one of you and hope to hear good news coming from your side. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me anytime. Email: Hairaccess@aol.com mobile 954-895-1106(whats app) God Bless Iyad (Andy) Hammad Hair & Accessories Inc. www.hairandaccessoriesinc.com Office: 1-305-953-0190 Fax: 1-305-384-1962 Mobile: 1-954-895-1106  Estimados proveedores y clientes, Tengan en cuenta que estamos cerrando nuestro almacén y nos mudamos a fin de mes.  Nuestra nueva dirección será: Hair & Accessories 8349 N.W. 36th St Doral, Florida 33166 Nuestras correo electrónico y teléfono / fax serán los mismos. Liquidaremos nuestras colecciones de cabello sintético y mixto para enfocarnos solo en artículos 100% de cabello humano y nuestras colecciones de extensiones de pestañas y nuestros productos recientemente desarrollados. Para artículos de liquidación se venderá solo por paletas (pallets). Si tiene algún interés, infórmenos ya que estos artículos se almacenarán en una instalación de 3 PL listos para ser enviados a cualquier parte del mundo. También estamos liquidando todo nuestro material de estanterías de Almacén, incluyendo maquinaria de almacén, muebles de oficina y sala de exposición. Si está interesado, visite nuestra instalación de Opa Locka antes de fin de mes para hacer un trato. Durante estos tiempos de incertidumbre, esperamos que usted, sus familias y empresas superen los desafíos actuales. Aprecio a cada uno de ustedes y espero escuchar buenas noticias de su parte. Por favor no dude en comunicarse conmigo en cualquier momento. Email: Hairaccess@aol.com Whatsapp 954-895-1106 Que Dios los bendigue Iyad (Andy) Hammad Hair & Accessories Inc. www.hairandaccessoriesinc.com Oficina 1-305-953-0190 1-305-384-1962 efax 1-954-895-1106 móvil VIP EXTENSIONS | www.vipextensions.com