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On Her Own Ground
An interview with author A'lelia Bundles,
who chronicles the life of African American entrepreneur and
philanthropist Madam C.J. Walker.
By Nzinga Moore
 As an
aspiring journalist I was very excited to have the opportunity to interview
an award-winning television news producer, journalist, and author. A'lelia Bundles,
a journalist who loves a well-told story, received an American Book Award from
the Before Columbus Foundation in 1991. As the great-great-granddaughter of
one of the most established persons of our time and author of the newly published
On Her Own Ground—The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, Bundles
is considered the authority on Walker's life.
Madam C.J. Walker is best known for starting a successful business selling Madam
Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower (a hair product for African American women),
and becoming a millionaire in a time when African Americans were just claiming
their place as citizens in America.
Through Bundle's writings, readers can learn more about Madam Walkers' work
as an entrepreneur and more importantly as an activist and philanthropist.
Youth In Control: What inspired you to write On Her Own Ground: The Life
and Times of Madam C.J. Walker?
A'Lelia Bundles: Well to tell you the truth, it was just my passion.
I think I began working on this when I was a little girl even before I could
read. The silverware that we used everyday in my house had Madam Walker's monograms
on it. And the china we used on Thanksgiving was her hand painted china. My
mother was vice president of the C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. So I had
little seeds planted from my earliest years, and as I developed my skills as
a journalist I realized I was telling other people's story and I needed to be
telling Madam Walker's story and the story of African Americans.
YIC: And what do you think the story of African Americans' is - from then
until now?
A.L.: Well despite a great deal of adversity we still triumph. And that's
really what her story is about. She's a great American riches story and we're
woven into the fabric of American history, but we're not always given credit
for the things that we have done.
YIC: Can you compare and contrast your life to Madam C.J. Walker's?
A.L.: Well the obstacles that I've faced really pale in comparison to
what Madam Walker had to go through. She was born the daughter of slaves in
1867, she was orphaned by the time she was seven, married at 14, a widow with
a two-year-old daughter at 20. She experienced more loss and more adversity
in the first 20 years of her life than I've ever experienced at all in my life.
With no education and no particular skills she was really consigned to the bottom
of society. Now we all have personal obstacles and personal adversity that we
have to overcome. I really was very fortunate to have a privileged childhood.
But everyone has to go through something, whether there are people who stand
in your way or there are obstacles in the way. And I have drawn strength from
the example that my parents set but also the more I have learned about Madam
Walker the more I look to see just how determined she was and I really have
no excuse. I have to realize my goals and my dreams.
YIC: Can you talk a little about her political involvement as well?
A.L.: What's very interesting to me is that the wealthier Madam C.J.
Walker became the more politically militant she became. She was a woman who
had observed lynching and she had observed discrimination when she was a child
and throughout her adulthood. And when she had the power to have a platform
to speak out against these things she used it. And she was even spied upon by
the US government for speaking out against lynching, for speaking out in favor
of civil rights, for talking about the rights of black soldiers during World
War I. But she was courageous and she didn't let that stop her. Her money had
come from people in the black community and she wanted to use her wealth and
her influence to make things better for other people.
YIC: And what about giving? I know she was a philanthropist also.
A.L.: I think in part because she herself had had such a difficult early
life she turned that into a vision for other people. She contributed large amounts
of money. And in some ways reconfigured the philosophy of philanthropic giving
in the black community. We've always given to churches but she started giving
to schools and colleges, to the YMCA. She gave 5,000 dollars to the anti-lynching
campaign of the NAACP… So that to me is a major part of her legacy, that
she made money but she used that money to benefit the community.
YIC: And how did she initially start out with this idea of hair care products?
A.L.: Well this was the true story of necessity is the mother of invention.
She was going bald! And she was going bald because she had a horrible scalp
disease, which was very common at the time among black and white women. It was
an old wives' tale that women should only wash their hair once a month and not
at all during the winter. And it is just too gross to even really think about.
But you can just imagine inflammation and dandruff and all the horrible things
that would happen if you washed your hair that infrequently.
As a result she was going bald. Her scalp was too unhealthy for her hair to
grow. And she said, "I felt so ashamed of my appearance, my frightful appearance,
I prayed to God for a solution." And she said, "And shortly after
that in a dream a big black man came to me and told me what to mix up for my
products; some of the ingredients came from Africa. I sent for them and mixed
them together and applied the ointment to my scalp and my hair began to grow
back faster than it had ever fallen out."
YIC: People also mistake her for inventing the straightening comb. Did she
have any ties to straightening African-American women's hair?
A.L: Many people do believe that Madam Walker invented the straightening
comb but she didn't and you would be surprised to know that the straightening
comb was probably around in the mid-19th century and white women were really
the first ones who used the straightening comb because they were trying to affect
certain styles with wigs.
But Madam did popularize the use of the straightening comb among black women;
she wasn't the only one who used it. But she thought it was an improvement over
some of the other methods that black women were using to straighten their hair.
She thought the comb, which separated the strains of the hair, made the hair
more natural and allowed it to have more body. She wasn't pressing it so that
it was flat and slicked down, but women did want to be able to comb through
their hair and affect some of the styles of the day. And you know we can't deny
that we are influenced by the society around us.
And there might have been some dimensions of wanting to look European but I
think she really understood this conflict. She once told a reporter, "Let
me correct the erroneous impression that I claim to straighten hair. I grow
hair. I want the great masses of my people to care more about their appearance."
And she said that at a time when African Americans were becoming more urban
and competing in the job market so she understood this controversy.
YIC: How does an African American woman's hairstyle help her career or limit
her?
A.L.: I think that there is still a lot of pain around our hair, that
some people are uncomfortable about their natural hair. But I think our hair
is kinda like jazz: it's a little bit of this, it's a little bit the background
from this part of our lives, from that part of our lives. And I think we get
too hung up on whether it's straight or whether it's not straight.
YIC: Can we go back a little bit to her political involvement? Is there one
specific story that you might tell, out of everything that she did?
A.L.: Definitely. My favorite story about her involves Booker T. Washington.
Madam Walker wanted to tell her story, people wanted to know her success. How
she had moved from being an orphan and a widow to being a woman who was making
more money than white executives… And so she thought it was appropriate
to attend the 1912 National Negro Business League Convention in Chicago. And
that organization had been founded by Booker T. Washington, who was the most
powerful black man in America.
When she arrived at the convention she sent word to Booker T. Washington that
she wanted to be included on the program so she could share her story along
with the other delegates — who were seen talking about banks they had founded
and stores they had opened, companies they had started since slavery. And Booker
T. Washington ignored her request. So on the second day she enlisted the aid
of a good friend of hers, George Knox, who was the publisher of a black newspaper
and a friend of Booker T. Washington's. And George Knox stood up on her behalf
and said, "We should hear from Madam Walker. She's the woman who contributed
1,000 dollars to the black YMCA. Her story is fascinating." And Booker
T. Washington looked at George Knox and dismissed him and said, "You know
we're discussing lifetime membership.
And so on the third and final day of the convention, when Madam Walker saw that
she wasn't going to be given an opportunity to speak she realized she would
have to seize the opportunity. So she waited for the last banker to complete
his remarks, stood at her seat, looked toward Booker T. Washington and said,
"Surely you're not going to shut the door in my face. I am a woman who
came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub,
from there I was promoted to the cook-kitchen and from there I promoted myself
into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations. I have built
my own factory on my own ground."
The next year Booker T. Washington invited her back as a keynote speaker…I
love that. That's where the title of my book, On Her Own Ground, comes
from, from that speech.
YIC: How are other ways Madam C. J. Walker dealt with sexism and racism during
that time?
A.L.: Boy, she certainly faced a lot of it. But she just kept pushing
through it. She was a resilient human being who wouldn't allow these obstacles
to get in her way. She was a person of great faiths… She was so driven
to make money and to use that money to make a difference. She realized that
what was respected most in America was the money that you had. And the money
became a means to an end for her to facilitate change.
YIC: Let's talk about you for a little bit… How did you get your start
in journalism?
A.L.: When I was eight years old I had my first story that was published,
and [I knew] that's what I want[ed] to do. My parents were wise enough not to
push me into what essentially was the family business, but to let me discover
my own talents and follow my own dreams. I studied journalism. I worked for
years in television. But I think that all the time I was honing those skills
to tell stories so that I could tell this story of Madam Walker.
In telling Madam Walker's story I hope that I'm writing history in the way that
it should have been written for me, so that the next generation doesn't have
to rediscover these things. That it's already there for them… So I really
think that my purpose here is to tell these stories so that we understand our
past and understand the contributions that we've made to America.
YIC: What advice would you give to a young person interested in studying
journalism?
A.L.: I think the most important thing for someone who wants to be a
journalist is to be able to write well. And that sounds very simplistic. But
writing is very hard. When I was doing my book, each chapter I probably rewrote
10 or 12 or 15 times. So the secret to writing, at least for me, is rewriting.
And reading lots of other things — lots of other really good writers. And
it takes some time to develop it.
I read things that I wrote 10 years ago or 20 years ago and I'm almost embarrassed
to read them, but I know that I get better every year. And even some of my paragraphs
in the book now, I read them and think, "Boy that sounded good a year and
a half ago, but it could have been better." So you always have to be your
own critic and your own editor, and then not be afraid to find a buddy who is
also a writer and let them critique your work and sort of have a partnership
in that.
YIC: Are there any final things that you would like to say about Madam C.J.
Walker?
A.L.: I like to remind people that the first time someone says no to
you, [it] just means an opportunity. And that was how Madam Walker viewed the
obstacles… she would say to people, "Don't wait for the opportunities
to come. You have to get up and make them for yourselves."
For more information about Madam C.J. Walker and A'lelia Bundles' book, On Her
Own Ground—The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, check out http://www.madamcjwalker.com
— Nzinga
Moore is a sophomore at San Francisco State University. She has
interviewed Michael Franti, Tavis Smiley, the host of BET Tonight with
Tavis Smiley, and Pam Moore, who is a co-anchor for KRON-TV.
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