Madam C.J. Walker was born in 1867, two years after the civil war ended. She was a daughter of a slave. She had no formal education. Both her parents died by the time she was seven. Yet, by the time she died in 1919 at age 51, she was one of the most successful businesswomen America had ever seen. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
I have lived almost seven decades. So I’ve had my hair journey where I wasn’t comfortable with my hair. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
Why is she Mrs. C.J. Walker? It really was a matter of her trying to insist that people respect her, because during that time, white people would call any black woman ‘Sally.’ ‘Aunt Sally.’ So this was like… you can’t call me that. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
I wrote my first report about Madam Walker when I was a senior in high school in 1970. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
Madame Walker was one of the four iconic women who really created what’s now the modern hair-care and cosmetics industry, and we know about her in the black community because everybody gets their hair done. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
I think Michelle Obama ought to wear her hair exactly the way she wants to wear her hair. I am not looking for Michelle Obama to cut her hair off like I have mine, very short. I’m not looking for her to do twists. I’m looking for her to wear what’s comfortable for her. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
And mothers and daughters – mothers need to help their daughters love their hair. And some mothers know how to do this, and some mothers help their daughters love their hair. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
One of the key things for me about Madame Walker’s life is that she really does represent this first generation out of slavery when black people were reinventing themselves, and as a woman who was the first child in her family born free, she was trying to figure out a way, and she moved from Delta, Louisiana. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
You know the AME Church has a history of empowering black people and having an international outlook. So it was the women of the church who began to give Sarah Breedlove an image of herself as something other than an illiterate washerwoman, and she wanted to make her life better, and her daughter’s life better. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
Madam Walker, as part of the first generation out of slavery, really was inventing the way that she operated in the world. A'Lelia Bundles Read Quote
