Challenge: seven years old—parents dead, no roof but the next one’s, no school after eighth grade, scalp on fire from the cheap combs white folks sold Black women.

Accountable: didn’t curse the world. Mixed the first batch in her kitchen sink, tested it on her own head, sold it door-to-door. Every jar that failed was hers to fix.

Assimilated: invented Poro—hair care, yes, but really a school. Turned customers into owners. Gave Black women their own storefronts, their own paychecks.

Allegiance: gave millions to the Black YMCA, to orphans, to Howard—said “if I rise, we rise.”

Permanent: the work never stopped. Kitchen table to boardroom—same hands.

Prudent: pennies in a jar, no waste, every dollar reinvested.

Pragmatic: built slow, built solid, let the women run their own branches.

Lemons: orphan, broke, no recipe.

What she made: Poro empire—hair products, yes, but really dignity in a jar.

Read: On Her Own Ground by A’Lelia Bundles—walks like a story.

Challenge: born in a slave hut, mother sold away before he could remember her face, no last name, no book, no tomorrow.

Accountable: took every lash and every silence as his own fault—said “if there’s no struggle, there’s no progress,” so he struggled. Taught himself to read in the dark, against the law, with a stolen Webster’s.

Assimilated: didn’t ask for a corner—he demanded the whole room. Escaped at twenty, changed his name, became a speaker whose voice shook presidents.

Allegiance: loved this country the way a surgeon loves a sick patient—he cut deep to save it. Fought for the vote, for the seat, for the truth.

Permanent: the fire never went out.

Prudent: words were weapons—he aimed, then fired.

Pragmatic: marched with Garrison, advised Lincoln, played every hand that moved freedom.

Lemons: chains, whip scars, no name.

What he made: a voice that broke the nation open.

Read: his own Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass—raw, no sugar.