There are reasons all year long to celebrate the incredible contributions Black women have made and continue to make in the world of business. Black History Month gets us to stop and pay more focused attention to the trailblazers whose efforts have changed the landscape for all of us.
You might never have heard the names of these five women, but you have certainly felt their impact.
Celebrating the Trailblazers
Bridget Mason, also known as “Biddy”, was a former slave. One of the first Black women to own property in Los Angeles, she became a real estate mogul, whose holdings included both residential and commercial properties. In 1872, she provided financing for the city’s first Black church. She eventually built a fortune of $300,000 (approximately $6 million today), making her the wealthiest Black woman in the city.
Maggie Lena Walker founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903. Walker was the first woman of any race to charter a bank in the United States. The bank is still in operation to this day. She published the St. Luke Herald, the newspaper of the Richmond, Virginia chapter of the NAACP and used this platform to encourage other Black citizens to become business owners.
Madam C.J. Walker was one of the first female self-made millionaires in the United States. Walker created specialized hair products for African American and sold her products via lecture demonstrations all over the country before she established her own factory and beauty school in Pittsburgh in 1908.
Eunice Walker Johnson co-founded Ebony Magazine 1945. She launched the annual Ebony Fashion Fair in 1958 featuring African American models and African American designers. Over the years, the Fashion Fair raised over 50 million dollars for charity. She was also the creative force behind Fashion Fair Cosmetics, one of the first beauty product lines formulated for the complexions of women of color.
Marie Van Brittan Brown was the inventor of the first home security system, which the basis for the two-way communication and surveillance features of modern security. She filed her patent, which included an alarm button to contact police, in 1966. She is also known for inventing the first closed-circuit television.
There are so many, more who should be recognized and celebrated, including many of our own clients. Whether they are pioneers or inheritors and keepers of the legacy, we honor them. Not just this month, but always.
Blessings,
Chris
