02/27/2023
Ms. Mary Ellen Pleasant was is known as the first black woman millionaire, decades before Madame CJ Walker.
Mary Ellen Pleasant was a real estate magnate, financier, and abolitionist. Her sole aim was to make money to help more people, especially the enslaved and formerly enslaved. She kept a low profile, pretending to be a cook or a maid to learn information about properties and gain access to wealthy whites.
Ms. Pleasant owned boarding houses, laundries, brothels, restaurants, and was the co-founder of a bank. She used the money she earned to teach people to keep safe, find work, establish businesses, and more. Expanding the Underground Railroad west and fighting several legal battles, she became known as the Mother of Civil Rights in California.