Black History Month should include a profile of Madame C.J. Walker, a role model for her time and ours.

Born Sarah Breedlove in 1867 in Delta, Louisiana, she was orphaned at the age of seven and married at 14. Her daughter's birth soon followed, but her husband died within two years, leaving them alone. She found a new start in St. Louis, where her four brothers worked as barbers. She made only $1.50 a day at her new job, but saved enough to ensure that her daughter was educated. Joining both a church and the National Association of Colored Women, she rounded out her earliest days of self-sufficiency.

Her life's course was changed in the 1890s by a scalp ailment that seemed to have no remedy. Searching for a cure, she tested hair treatments by a variety of companies, but despite a brief experience as a saleswoman for a treatment by Annie Malone, she remained dissatisfied. Finally, in 1905, after marrying for the third time and changing her name to Madame C.J. Walker, she created her own hair treatment and began to sell it.

This product allowed black women to treat their scalps and straighten their hair much more easily than with previous methods, which usually involved hot irons and flat boards. Thus, through her product's appeal of ease and her skills as a saleswoman, Madame Walker became one of the first female millionaires in the United States.

Her treatment was initially sold door-to-door throughout the south, but by late 1905, she owned a hair-care business that trained "beauty culturists" in her methods. This business grew quickly, and by the time of her death in 1919, it employed more than 20,000 sales people.

Throughout these good times, Madame Walker was more than a businesswoman and millionaire. A philanthropist and political activist, she contributed time and money to various causes, notably the movement for anti-lynching legislation. But how would her enterprising spirit be treated today?

In California, Madame C.J. Walker would face regulations mandating 1,600 hours and around $5,000 of training in a government-licensed beauty school, learning irrelevant techniques designed for antiquated notions of hair care. She would be held back by these regulations unless she wanted to fight a protracted legal battle like African hair braiders did in 1999. The hair braiders won, but the regulations remain in place.

Similar business licensing regulations stop countless Americans from raising themselves out of poverty. It's time such regulations were repealed. They help no one except the established businesses by keeping out competitors, while they prevent a new generation of Madame C.J. Walkers from earning their own millions on the power of a good idea coupled with hard work. Those working to change this system can take a cue from what Walker told a convention in 1917:

"This is the greatest country under the sun," she said, "but we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice."