The Cost of A Legacy

As Women's History Month comes to a close, one of the most influential female figures, specifically in the African American community, has had some light shed upon her legacy and what it took to achieve it. One of the first Black female self made millionaires, Madame C.J. Walker created an empire of hair care products and hair styles that redefined the barriers of what it meant for Black wealth in America in the early 20th century.

The topic of the mogul, Madame C.J. Walker, became a trending topic on many media sites as well of film critics after a story loosely based on her life was released through the streaming platform, Netflix. The limited series entitled Self Made, highlighted the many struggles that Walker, had to overcome in order to achieve her goals and build a lasting legacy for herself and her family to come after. It does well to keep in mind that her life was dramatized for entertainment purposes so it important to not accept everything in the film as hardcore facts about her life.

The film featured a feud between Walker and a character loosely based on her mentor, Annie Malone, who was also a pioneer in the revolutionizing of hair care products for black women as well as a self made billionaire herself. While the feud between the two female tycoons was real, the movie definitely played up the drama between the two women by dramatizing the issue of color-ism heavily throughout the film. The film depicted Walker as the darker skinned counterpart to the supposed privilege of the lighter skinned, biracial Annie Malone. While colorism was and is still an issue for the black community and acceptability politics, it should not come at the cost of someone's reputation when there is no factual basis for the dramatization of such a serious issue.