Madam C.J. Walker

As a news producer for both ABC and NBC, it was A’Lelia Bundles’ job to tell other people’s stories. While she traveled the country doing that, she couldn’t help but think that few of those stories were more powerful than her own – or, more precisely, that of her great-great-grandmother, Madam C. J. Walker. While the hair-care entrepreneur is frequently touted as America’s first black millionaire (actually, her wealth was assessed at around $700,000 at the time of her death), Bundles knew her story was about much more than the money she accumulated. Her great-great-grandmother, Bundles knew, was also a philanthropist, an activist who spoke out against lynching and for the empowerment of women, and a shrewd businesswoman. Bundles resigned from a prestigious position at ABC News’ Washington Bureau to write her forebear’s story.

  "I’ve been preparing for this my whole life," says Bundles, recalling her childhood in Indianapolis where the Walker manufacturing plant was located. "When I was little the silverware we used had [Walker’s] initials on it. … The china we used for special occasions was her hand-painted china. I remember going with my mother to the factory where people were still mixing products by hand."

  In 1998, Bundles had spearheaded the campaign to get Madam Walker added to the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage Series stamps, and in 1991 she wrote a young adult biography titled Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur (Chelsea House), but the biography that Bundles would finally complete was a more exhaustive look at Madam Walker’s life and accomplishments. The undertaking took Bundles to courthouses, libraries and research centers throughout the country, unearthing other family stories along the way and developing the journalist’s appreciation for genealogy.

  "I signed a contract in 1995 for this book," says Bundles of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker (Scribner/A Lisa Drew Book, 2001). "I took a leave of absence from ABC. Then the Monica Lewinsky story broke, so my writing time was shot. In 1999, I took a giant leap of faith and resigned as deputy bureau chief. I knew this book deserved my full attention."

  Bundles’ leap brought her success. On Her Own Ground is in its second printing, there is a movie in development, and the book has received a slew of favorable reviews for its detailed research and Bundles’ compelling rendering of the arc of Madam Walker’s inspiring life – a life that began in rural Louisiana.

Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta (in Madison Parish) in 1867, the fifth of six children and the first to be born after emancipation. According to Bundles, some of Madam Walker’s earliest entrepreneurial and activist influences may have come from childhood. After the Civil War, 90 percent of the electorate in Madison Parish was black. During Reconstruction, Madam Walker’s family minister served as the parish’s state senator. He was also a storeowner and a farmer. "Seeds could have been planted during that part of her life," Bundles muses.

  Later, after a move to Vicksburg, Miss., Walker, at 14, married the first of her three husbands and had her only child: Lelia, who later changed her name to A’Lelia (she is Bundles’ namesake). Walker was just 20 when that husband died and she moved with her daughter to St. Louis where three of her four brothers lived. There, Walker worked as a washerwoman and became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. Bundles believes the AME church, known for its history of education and political activism, might have also been an influence on the young Walker.

  Still, Madam Walker would struggle for another 10 years, supporting her daughter as a washerwoman and surviving a second, reportedly abusive, marriage. It was also during this time that the Walker hair care empire had its humble beginnings. Madam’s hair began to fall out – a common problem for women of the period because little was known about proper hair care, particularly for black women. Legend has it that Madam Walker said a black man appeared to her in a dream and told her what to mix for her hair. In any case, the sulfur-based formula worked and Madam was soon cooking up batches for other women. She would later leave St. Louis for Denver, where she married her third husband, Charles Joseph Walker. She divorced him after six years, but kept the name.

There is perhaps no more politically tender a topic in the African-American community than hair. Madam Walker’s reputation as the inventor of the straightening comb often casts her in a questionable light, but A’Lelia Bundles insists that claim is simply untrue.

  Madam Walker traveled the country promoting her new hair care company and went on to build Lelia College, a school in Pittsburgh that trained Walker "hair culturists," and a manufacturing plant in Indianapolis where the Walker Manufacturing Comp any was headquartered for 70 years. In 1916, just three years before her death at age 51, she built a mansion – Villa Lewaro – in Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., which was also home to John D. Rockefeller. The house was sold in 1932 after A’Lelia Walker’s death.

  When Madam was inducted into the American Health and Beauty Aids Institute’s Hall of Fame in 1999, she was lauded for her innovative marketing and distribution strategies. Walker’s "hair culturists" were the forerunners of today’s Avon and Mary Kay salesforces. In fact, Bundles points out, in 1915, when Mary Kay Cosmetics founder Mary Kay Ash was born, Madam C.J. Walker was already holding conventions for her sales force. She gave prizes not only to the women who sold the most Walker products, but also to those who gave the most to charity. Her own life experiences no doubt a catalyst, Madam Walker was an outspoken advocate of women’s financial independence.

  "It’s important that she was one of the pioneers of the modern hair care industry," says Bundles. "And that she used her wealth and influence and wanted to empower women. … She once said that ‘the girls and women of our race must take hold of the business opportunities that are at their very doorsteps.’ She truly knew the importance of women being economically independent."

History has not always been kind or accurate when it comes to Madam Walker. There is perhaps no more politically tender a topic in the African-American community than hair. Straight hair, kinky hair, "good hair," "bad hair" – because of the social, economic and psychological impact of hair texture and skin color in the lives of black people living in America, Madam Walker’s reputation as the inventor of the straightening comb often casts her in a questionable political light. Bundles insists that claim and many others are simply untrue.

  "Part of the point in writing the book was letting people know that she never made any skin-lightening products," Bundles says. "She never made any products that straightened the hair. She made a product to stop hair loss, Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower. She was trying to encourage women to wash their hair more often with her vegetable shampoo and use a product containing sulfur to heal the scalp.

  "Her image has been confused," says Bundles of the many things written about her great-great-grandmother in the mid-part of the 20th century. "The things that were written were always the same and always by males who misinterpreted her … though W.E.B. DuBois did get it right in her obituary."