Ask Sheila Johnson what she was like as a child, and it doesn't take long to get a picture of the qualities that helped her become America's first Black woman billionaire. Around age 11, for instance, she started waking up at midnight to practice the violin—in part so that her fledgling string work wouldn't disturb her family during the day.
“They didn't enjoy listening to me as much as I enjoyed playing,” the 74-year-old says, sitting in the airy presidential suite of the Salamander Hotel in Washington, D.C. Her hospitality company—the Salamander
