On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker

Ishmael Reed Madam Walker is the key to understanding her generation. She had to battle the society that consigned her to doing its laundry...yet she triumphed to become one of the most fabulous African-American figures of the twentieth century.

Autorentext

A’Lelia Bundles, author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, is Walker’s biographer and great-great-granddaughter. Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker, the fictional four-part Netflix series inspired by this New York Times Notable Book and starring Octavia Spencer, premiered in the number one slot during its first weekend in 2020. She is chair emerita of the National Archives Foundation and a former ABC News Washington deputy bureau chief. She lives in Washington, DC. Visit her website at ALeliaBundles.com.

Klappentext

Bundles, a journalist and great-great-granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, offers a lively portrait of an American businesswoman. Walker, the first freeborn child of slaves, rose from poverty to establish a successful hair-care business, became one of the wealthiest women in the United States, and devote herself to a life of activism and philanthropy toward race and women's issues. 16 page photo insert.

Zusammenfassung
Soon to be a Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer, On Her Own Ground is the first full-scale biography of “one of the great success stories of American history” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Madam C.J. Walker—the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist—by her great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles.

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Sarah Breedlove—who would become known as Madam C. J. Walker—was orphaned at seven, married at fourteen, and widowed at twenty. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then—with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for black women—everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among black women, and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed friendships with great early-twentieth-century political figures such as Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington.

Inhalt

Contents

Biological Ancestors of Fairy Mae Bryant

Descendants of Owen Breedlove, Sr.

Prologue

Freedom Baby
Motherless Child
Wife, Mother, Widow
St. Louis Woman
Answered Prayers
World's Fair
Westward
On the Road
Bold Moves
"The Salvation of Your Boys and Girls"
"I Promoted Myself..."
Breaking Ties, Making Ties
Sweet Satisfaction
New Horizons
Black Metropolis
Southern Tour
"We Should Protest"
War Abroad, War at Home
Her Dream of Dreams
Global Visions
"I Want to Live to Help My Race"

A'Lelia Walker: An Afterword

Epilogue

Endnotes

Selected Bibliography

Permissions

Acknowledgments

Index