Early Life

Born Lelia McWilliams (she added the A' in her later years) to Madam C.J. Walker and her first husband Moses McWilliams in Vicksburg, Mississippi, she and her mother (who became a widow at 20) moved to St. Louis where she spent most of her youth. After attending Knoxville College in Tennessee, A'Lelia joined her mother, who'd moved to Denver, to help with her haircare business.

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