While many St. Louis residents are familiar with the annual Annie Malone May Day Parade, knowledge of her accomplishments and why she's honored with a parade are less known.
Related
To keep her legend alive, 4theVille gives historic walking tours of the neighborhood. Tour guide Aaron Williams says unfortunately, Malone's fame was eventually eclipsed by another St. Louisan who was a sales representative for Malone's company--Madam C.J. Walker.
Annie Malone is considered to be one of the first Black women in the United States to become a millionaire. With a knowledge of chemistry and an entrepreneurial spirit, Malone developed a line of haircare products for Black women. Although born in Metropolis, IL, in 1869 and educated in Peoria, Malone moved her new business to St. Louis just in time for the 1904 World's Fair.
Malone was extremely generous, donating to numerous charities and founding the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, which is now the Annie Malone Children and Family Services Center. She built Poro College from the ground up. It was a cosmetology school and training center for Black women that also housed her business and manufacturing operations. Eventually there were 32 branches of Poro College around the country. (The city of St. Louis tore Poro down in the 70s and replaced it with a low-income apartment building).
A high-profile divorce put Malone's empire at risk and she decided to move her operations to Chicago in 1930. Despite that, Williams says Malone was the matriarch of The Ville and was really a driving force behind what made the neighborhood so special.