The name “Annie Malone” is familiar in St. Louis thanks to the annual Annie Malone May Day Parade, Festival, and Talent Showcase. The parade is the chief fundraising event for Annie Malone Children and Family Services, and organization that has been providing services to St. Louis families since 1888 (it was originally known as the St. Louis Colored Orphan’s Home). But the story of the woman behind the name is less well known, even among attendees at the Festival, as revealed early in Kim Love’s documentary Annie Turnbo Malone: The Untold Story.
Many more people are familiar with the story of Madame C. J. Walker, whose life was the subject of the Netflix mini-series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madame C. J. Walker, which starred Octavia Spencer as the title character. Ironically, Annie Malone was a mentor of Walker, yet has received less recognition, and many feel her character was unfairly maligned in the series. Unfortunately, lots of people watch Netflix and may confuse a fictional portrayal with actual history, so one role Love’s documentary can play is that of setting the record straight. There’s no need to put down one woman to celebrate another, after all: it’s possible to fairly credit each person for what they accomplished in the world.
Malone’s life and accomplishments are more than worthy of recognition and they also provide an interesting window into the life of a female African American entrepreneur whose 79 years on this earth ran from the aftermath of the Civil War in the 1870s through the early years of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. Born Annie Minerva Turnbo to formerly enslaved parents on a farm near Metropolis, Illinois, she was orphaned at an early age and attended high school in Peoria, where she showed particular talent for chemistry.
There was great pressure on African Americans at the time to assimilate to white society, and hair and skin care was part of that effort. Malone turned her interest in chemistry into creating personal care products for African American women under the Poro brand, first working with her sister from a small house in Brooklyn, Illinois. She later moved to Mill Creek Valley in St. Louis, and created Poro College, which trained women to use Poro products and to act as authorized sales agents for them.
One of those trainees was a customer then known as Sarah McWilliams, later as Sarah Breedlove and most famously as Madame C. J. Walker. No one seems to know exactly what happened to break their relationship, but Walker later positioned herself as a competitor to Malone. Business is business so maybe Walker just had an eye on the main chance—and as is the case today, there’s no reason to expect only one personal care product line to flourish.
Malone and her family later moved to The Ville in St. Louis, which would become a center of African American culture in the city. Due to segregation, the neighborhood had to be self-sufficient and a person could go from being born at Homer G. Phllips hospital to graduating from Sumner High School to a professional degree from Stowe Teachers College or Lincoln Law School without leaving the neighborhood. Malone, who became wealthy through her business success, became a leader in what was then called “uplifting the race” in the years when the doctrine of separate but equal allowed for legally enforced segregation, making many donations to educational and social institutions. When asked why she gave away so much, she reportedly said “it’s not my money, it’s God’s money.”
There are many more twists and turns in Malone’s story which are best learned by watching this film. It’s a bare-bones production, relying heavily on archival stills and narration by Robin Boyce and, especially in the second half, spreads its attention over too many topics. Still, the strength of the story being told, and the care taken to place Malone’s life in historical context, makes this film worth seeing.
Annie Turnbo Malone: The Untold Story was produced by the Annie Malone Film Project, LLC, and is not affiliated with the Annie Malone Historical Society or Annie Malone Children and Family Services. | Sarah Boslaugh
Annie Turnbo Malone: The Untold Story will be screened on Nov. 13 at 7:00 pm in the Brown Hall Auditorium at Washington University as part of the 35th annual Saint Louis International Film Festival. Tickets are free but it is advisable to reserve them online in advance as screenings often “sell out” before the screening date. Information about tickets and the full festival schedule is available from the Festival web site.
