On Her Own Ground
By A’Lelia Bundles
ABOUT THE BOOK
“In this 2020 edition of the first book-length account of Madam Walker’s life, her biographer has written a new epilogue and provided additional information about Walker’s millionaire status. 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.”
