Self-Made is a beau­ti­ful cel­e­bra­tion of black hair and power

Sarah Breedlove (Octavia Spencer) had for­got­ten how to dream about a future that didn’t involve her scrub­bing her fin­gers to the bone as a wash­woman. She found her­self in a dan­ger­ous head­space, hope­less and lone­ly, when her hair start­ed falling out, leav­ing her with bold patch­es and not a trace of confidence.

Enter Addie (Car­men Ejo­go), a woman who is prac­ti­cal­ly regard­ed St Louis roy­al­ty thanks to her line of effec­tive Hair Grow­er prod­ucts. It works won­ders on Sarah’s hair, spark­ing not only new-found con­fi­dence, but a desire to change her life and, with it, that of many oth­ers in her position.

Netflix’s new lim­it­ed series, Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walk­er, is a beau­ti­ful cel­e­bra­tion of black hair, pow­er and beau­ty. Based on Walker’s great-great grand­daugh­ter A’Lelia Bun­dles’ book, the show offers a hope­ful and empow­er­ing account of an era in which dam­aged hair and dry scalps were still decid­ing fac­tors between a life of free­dom or bondage, espe­cial­ly for women.

And Sarah (lat­er known as Madam CJ Walk­er) want­ed free­dom. While Addie had been hap­py to trade hair prod­ucts and treat­ments for Sarah’s laun­dry ser­vices, she wasn’t ready to give her a job as a door-to-door sales lady. This, Addie insist­ed, was not the right posi­tion for a woman ​“the likes of” Sarah, her appear­ance would not appeal to her clien­tele. Instead of deter­ring Sarah, Addie’s bla­tant colourism only spurred her determination.

With her hus­band CJ Walker’s (Blair Under­wood) unwa­ver­ing sup­port and using her daugh­ter Lelia (Tiffany Had­dish) as a guinea pig, Sarah starts exper­i­ment­ing with her own hair treat­ments until she final­ly lands on the ide­al com­bi­na­tion of ingre­di­ents. Sarah’s approach to sell­ing is to relate to her poten­tial clien­tele, using her own life and expe­ri­ence to share the sense of empow­er­ment this form of self-care has giv­en her. ​“Won­der­ful hair leads to won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties,” she assures the ladies who express an inter­est in her prod­uct. ​“If I look good, we look good.” Suc­cess may have been Sarah’s main focus, but it wasn’t her only one – she uplift­ed the women around her and treat­ed them with kind­ness and respect.

The pre­mière episode’s title, ​‘Fight of the Cen­tu­ry’, refers to the dream-like sequences of Sarah and Addie box­ing in the ring togeth­er, rep­re­sent­ing their fight to defend their respec­tive titles as hair­care pio­neers. It’s also a ref­er­ence to the famous match between leg­endary fight­ers Jack John­son and James J Jef­fries on 4 July, 1910, a high­light in Sarah’s house­hold and across the Unit­ed States.

The two instances – Johnson’s fight and Sarah’s grow­ing suc­cess as an entre­pre­neur – rep­re­sent a mas­sive win for the black com­mu­ni­ty. And while it didn’t come with­out its hard­ships, it was the last time Sarah was ever going to let any­one make her believe she was too dark to shine. No one was ever going to dim her light.

‘Fight of the Cen­tu­ry’ is a promis­ing start to a series that gives us a per­son­al per­spec­tive on Sarah’s own hair jour­ney and expe­ri­ences with colourism on her way to climb­ing to the top of the busi­ness ladder.