Some people remind me of wagon wheels.  They do.  They seem to have this incredibly strong core…. an inner circle.  And from that very sturdy center… branches a number of spokes… or arms… that reach out and connect to an outer circumference.  As that wheel turns, the outer rim comes in contact with a very wide area.  Every time it moves, it touches a something different.  Some people are like that, I think.

I learned today of woman… SarahBreedoveGlass who was born …. on this date…. in 1867.  Her parents,   Owen and Minerva Breedlove were recently freed slaves.  Yes.  The Civil War had just ended when Sarah was born.   She was one of six children.  She had a sister…. Louvenia and four brothers… Alexander, James, Solomon, and Owen, Jr.
Her parents and elder siblings were slaves on Madison Parish plantation…. which was in Louisiana.   All of this was owned by a white man named Robert W. Burney .
When Sarah was about five years old… her mother died from cholera.  Her father died shortly there after.  So… the impoverished, illiterate little girl moved to Vicksburg in 1878 to obtain work.  She moved in with her sister, and brother-in-law.  As it turns out… her brother-in-law was very abusive.  So Sarah married at age 14…. a man named Moses McWilliams to escape the abuse.  They had a daughter, Lelia …. and when  Lelia was only two years old, McWilliams died.

So…. this is just the very first segment of Sarah Breedlove Walker’s life.  I would venture to say that by the time she was 16 years of age…..  Sarah had been through an ordeal or two.

Yet… Sarah Breedlove Walker went on to build the largest black-owned business in America.  She made a fortune… in fact…. she was the first African-American woman millionaire.  In addition to all of this, she touched thousands with her philanthropy.
Of all things….Breedlove found her future in beauty products. She learned valuable lessons at the elbow of a black role model, Annie Turnbo Malone, who sold her shampoos and hair-pressing irons to crowds in St. Louis for the 1904 World’s Fair.  She had also become inspired by a book she read about the potential successes of Black Americans.  It was written by one… Booker T. Washington.

There are a blue million other great stories about her life… and how she made her way.  Not only did she seem to figure out how to make her own mark on life, she managed to touch others with her generosity, hard work, and character.    She used the successes of her business as a means to  contribute to African American orphanages, old-age homes, schools, colleges, and a new civil rights organization, the NAACP. Walker became one of the best-known women in America.

Yep… like a wagon wheel I think.

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” – Jackie Robinsman