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“I know how to grow hair as well as I know to grow cotton.”

Source: Address to the National Negro Business League convention, Chicago, 23 August 1912

Context Defending her hair-care trade before a business league whose president had declined to give her the floor, she tied her product to her sharecropping origins.

Portrait of Madam C. J. Walker
Madam C. J. WalkerUnited States · 1867–1919
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“I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the wash-tub. Then I was promoted to the cook kitchen, and from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations.”
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