Page 2 The Skanner March 9, 2016
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Opinion
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
Where is the Madam C.J. Walker of Today?
Bobbie Dore Foster
Executive Editor
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News Editor
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Reporter
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Seattle Office Coordinator
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Photographer
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omen entrepreneurs
have a powerful role
model when they
consider Madam C.J.
Walker. One of our nation’s
first female self-made million-
aires, her story of combining
herbs to develop and manu-
facture a hair pomade, of em-
powering tens of thousands
of women as sales agents for
her products, and of estab-
lishing a beauty school to
teach beauty techniques (and
provide economic empower-
ment for even more women)
are the stuff of legend.
She was not only an entre-
preneur, but also a philan-
thropist. She “lived large,”
owning two cars and a sprawl-
ing estate, Villa Lewaro in Ir-
vington, New York, but she
shared her wealth. She was
possessed with an amazing
self-confidence that served
her well in business and in
life.
Madam — as she is called
by her great-granddaughter,
A’Lelia Bundles, the keeper of
the family history and author
of several books about her
ancestor — was a character!
She changed her name from
Sarah Breedlove to Madam
C.J. Walker to provide herself
with a “classier” sounding
name, and to help prevent
white people from calling her
“Aunt”, as they called so many
African American women.
Julianne
Malveaux
NNPA
Columnist
For years, she sought the
opportunity to speak at Book-
er T. Washington’s National
Business League, but was de-
nied. As legend goes, she went
to one of the meetings and
took the mic and made her
speech, despite official denial.
Perhaps Booker T. Washing-
“
moted herself from a washer-
woman to a businesswoman,
speaking to the fact that few
were available to help her
to achieve her goals and the
goals of tens of thousands of
other women.
Her audacity, her self-pos-
session, her activism were no-
table during a time when few
women, regardless of race,
promoted themselves, instead
choosing to walk softly and
speak quietly. Today, women
like Cathy Liggons Hughes
(TV/Radio One), Sheila John-
son (co-founder of BET), and
Oprah Winfrey stand on her
times. You may have heard
that there has been an eco-
nomic recovery, but if you are
like most people in these Unit-
ed States, you haven’t felt it.
Incomes have hardly risen
since 2009, and barriers to
employment entry are high,
especially for some young Af-
rican Americans who, despite
similar qualifications to their
White counterparts, take
much longer to find meaning-
ful and remunerative work.
If the labor market won’t
absorb these young people,
African American entrepre-
neurs, the inheritors of Mad-
am C.J. Walker, must.
Younger women, es-
pecially, are motivated
by job markets that they
perceive to be unwel-
coming. While our col-
leges teach some edu-
cational fundamentals, they
ought also be encouraged to
teach entrepreneurship.
If the job market contin-
ues to generate an official
Black unemployment rate
of around 10 percent, and
an employment population
ratio of 60 percent (which
means that just 60 percent of
the adult population is work-
ing – it is closer to 70 percent
for whites, then the need for
Black entrepreneurs is criti-
cal. In the name of Madam C.J.
Walker, let’s keep our entre-
preneurial gene thriving!
As legend goes, she went to one of the
meetings and took the mic and made
her speech, despite official denial
ton was being sexist, or per-
haps (it is sometimes said) he
had an ideological opposition
to a woman whose product
was perceived as straighten-
ing hair. (By the way, Walker
did not invent the straighten-
ing comb. Annie Malone, who
preceded Madam Walker
in making her fortune with
beauty products and a beauty
school that Walker attended,
invented the straightening
comb.)
Still, she had the audacity to
take the mic and say her piece.
She noted that she had pro-
shoulders.
And today, in time for Wom-
en’s History Month, Madam
C.J. Walker’s products are
making a comeback. Her
historic formulas have been
modified for contemporary
use, with four formulas made
available based on hair tex-
ture. A’lelia Bundles has been
supportive of the line which,
as of March 4, is exclusively
available at the Sephora cos-
metics stores.
The Madam C.J. Walker
story takes on a special sig-
nificance in these economic
What I Learned from the Rise and Fall of the Black Panthers
W
hen Beyoncé gave
tribute to the 50th
Anniversary of the
start of the Black
Panther Movement, I thought,
“She doesn’t know what she is
celebrating.”
A look back at the years of
the Black Panthers demands
attention to other groups who
equally tried to force this na-
tion into equal rights for all
— especially Blacks. America
was about to change one way
or the other.
In the late 1960s, the an-
ti-war movement, frustration
with discrimination and lost
faith in our political system
caused many groups to form.
Groups that were anti-es-
tablishment. One particular
Black group was formed in
Oakland, California.
It was the Black Panther
People’s Party then shortly
changed to the Black Panther
Party. Its foundation was to
follow socialist/Marxist doc-
trine and to protect and gov-
ern their own communities.
They carried weapons, called
police “pigs,” wore black
leather jackets with black be-
rets fitted over their afro and
promoted revolution.
Violent skirmishes with
the police started becoming
frequent as their chapters
started popping up in cities
Harry C.
Alford
NNPA
Columnist
throughout the United States.
Some members of the Student
Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) decided to
become violent and join the
Panthers. Most notably Stoke-
“
full hour. Two years later ev-
eryone else was sporting one,
and so was I. I even bought a
black leather coat.
What I didn’t know was
that Gwen had joined the
Black Panthers. A couple of
years later, while I was at the
University of Wisconsin, my
mother sent me a local news
article. Gwen, who was going
to the University of Califor-
nia at Santa Barbara, joined
a fellow Black Panther and
hijacked a commercial jet tak-
Violent skirmishes with the police
started becoming frequent as their
chapters started popping up in cit-
ies throughout the United States
ly Carmichael (author of the
term Black Power) and H. Rap
Brown.
I was going to Ventura
Community College near my
hometown of Oxnard, Cali-
fornia. Suddenly, members
of the Black Panther Party —
Los Angeles Chapter came on
our campus to recruit Black
students into the movement.
Amazingly, they succeeded.
Gwen Harvey, fellow student,
was the first in our commu-
nity to grow a “natural” or
Afro. I laughed at her for a
ing off from the Santa Barbara
airport. They commandeered
it to Havana, Cuba where they
refueled and then flew across
the Atlantic Ocean to land in
Algeria. Algeria greeted them
with open arms and allowed
a new chapter of the Black
Panthers to be formed there.
The nation even funded them.
That is where Gwen spent the
rest of her days. She died of
natural causes a decade or so
later.
The FBI went to “war” with
the Panthers. In her autobi-
ography, Elaine Brown clear-
ly discusses the adventures
and soon deterioration of the
Panthers through J. Edgar
Hoover’s infamous COINTEL-
PRO investigations and assas-
sinations. If you want to know
about life with the Panthers
and how vicious a nation can
be, this is a must-read.
While I was attending the
University of Wisconsin, I
had the opportunity to meet
and quickly chat with Fred
Hampton, who ran the Chica-
go’s Black Panther chapter.
He gave a rousing speech
at an event sponsored by a
White communist organiza-
tion – Students for a Demo-
cratic Society (SDS).
My buddy and I were so in-
trigued we decided to drive to
Chicago, go to his headquar-
ters and request an on the
spot interview and then write
a paper for one of our pro-
fessors. Fred took us in! The
brother had the makings of a
great leader.
A few weeks later the Chi-
cago Police Department as-
sassinated him via a couple
of dozen bullets as he laid in
his bed beside wife, who was
eight months pregnant.
It was devastating! It was
a hard lesson for me. Fight
the power, but remember the
power follows no morals.