A biography for A'Lelia Bundleshasn’t been written yet.
“From the beginning, Madam C. J. Walker's message was as much about hair and beauty as it was about empowering other women. She knew that confidence and self-assurance are key ingredients to success, and that true beauty comes from within.”
“There are literally hundreds of stories about women of color that haven't been told that are amazing, fantastic, better than anything else.”
“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.”
“Madam Walker, as part of the first generation out of slavery, really was inventing the way that she operated in the world.”
“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.”
“There is a core of people who know and love Madam C.J. Walker, but there's a much larger audience who don't really know about her. I think 'Self Made' will give people a window into her life.”
“It's very hard to be a kid, especially in a predominantly white school or white town where other people want to police your body and hair.”
“Today, there's no excuse for not learning how to get our financial houses in order. Some of us close our eyes, take a deep breath and say a prayer when it comes to managing our finances.”
“Both my parents worked at the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, with my dad eventually being hired by another company called Summit Laboratories that made chemical hair straighteners.”
“It takes a long time, I think, to get to the place where you realize you may love the hairstyle that somebody else has.”
“For more than three years, I'd been part of a complex and frustrating dance as my nonfiction, fact-based material was translated from book to movie by scriptwriters whose visions, goals and sensibilities often were quite different from mine.”
“Wearing your hair natural is a positive statement about who you are. It's not a protest to somebody else. It's affirming you.”
“For all my life, I've been trying to tell Madam's story and really it's a labor of love just to make sure people know about her and the empowerment she gave to other women.”
“The saying was that Madam Walker made the money, and her daughter - my great-grandmother - spent it.”
“There are two national historic landmarks: the Madam Walker Legacy Center in Indianapolis and the Madam C.J. Walker House in Irvington, New York.”
“A'Lelia Walker did not subsidize specific writers, but she provided a place for all kinds of people to gather. She was one of the few blacks who had the money to allow her to entertain in the large scale.”
“My mother was the fourth generation of women to have worked with the Walker company. As a little girl, I would go to her office while she worked. She was a very capable woman.”
“The real Annie Malone was not a light-skinned woman.”
“Madam Walker was an incredible woman, but she wasn't the only one of her time who was. She just took it to the highest height.”
“She was born Sarah Breedlove on a plantation in Delta, Louisiana, where her parents had been slaves. At 14, she married to get a home of her own, to get away from a cruel brother-in-law with whom she was living. At 17, she had her only child, A'Lelia, who I'm named after.”