Drawn from more than two decades of exhaustive research, and enriched by the author's exclusive access to personal letters, records and never-before-seen family photographs, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madame C. J. Walker (A Washington Square Press Trade Paperback; Publication Date: January 2, 2002; ISBN: 0-7434-3172-3; Price: $15.95) is the first full-scale, definitive biography of the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Written by her great great granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles, this Essence, Blackboard and Washington Post bestseller is already a favorite of women's book clubs nationwide. On Her Own Ground was a 2002  finalist for the first annual Borders Books-Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, received the 2001 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Prize for the Best Book on Black Women's History from The Association of Black Women Historians and was named a 2002 Honor Book by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and a 2001 New York Times Notable Book.

In chapters such as "Freedom Baby," "Motherless Child," "Bold Moves" and "Black Metropolis," Bundles traces her ancestor's improbable—but quintessentially American—transformation from an impoverished washerwoman into one of early twentieth-century America's wealthiest, self-made businesswomen, at the top of an international hair care empire that would be run by four generations of Walker women. Along the way, On Her Own Ground reveals surprising insights and fascinating stories.

Born Sarah Breedlove in 1867, this daughter of former slaves could never have foreseen that her palatial Irvington-on-Hudson, New York mansion, Villa Lewaro—built not far from the Westchester County estates of John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould—would become a national historic landmark.  Orphaned at seven years of age, she was forced to live with one of her sisters and endured the abuse of a cruel brother-in-law until she escaped his household by marrying at 14. By 20, she was a widow struggling to rear her only child, Lelia McWilliams—later known as A'Lelia Walker, a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

In search of a better life, the woman who would become Madam C.J. Walker moved to St. Louis in the late 1880s to be near her three brothers, each of whom were barbers. With little formal education, she rarely earned more than $1.50 a day as a laundress until she created a shampoo and sulfur-based ointment that healed the scalp disease and baldness that plagued her and thousands of other American women.

After establishing the headquarters of the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1910, Madam Walker traveled throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and Central America, establishing training centers in dozen of cities and preaching financial independence to African American women who had been forced into jobs as farm workers, maids and washerwomen. By 1917, the year before cosmetics mogul Mary Kay Ash was born, Madam Walker was already holding national conventions of her Walker Sales Agents and urging these well-paid African American women to use a portion of their earnings to benefit their communities.

As a pioneer of the modern cosmetics  industry—along with women like Helen Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden—Madam Walker created direct sales marketing schemes, promotional campaigns and distribution strategies as innovative as those of any entrepreneur of her time. Her business sense and aggressive training and traveling helped spread her story and her product, bringing African-American women out of the wash tub and into the sales force.

At the dawn of America's entry into World War I—just as Harlem was becoming a political and cultural Mecca for African Americans—Madam Walker joined her daughter there and increased her philanthropy and political activism. Soon she became as well known for her business acumen as for her charitable contributions to the N.A.A.C.P., the YMCA, the YWCA, and numerous African American schools, colleges and churches. In 1917, after the horrific East St. Louis riot, she joined a group of Harlem leaders who visited the White House to urge President Woodrow Wilson to support Federal Anti-Lynching legislation.

In ON HER OWN GROUND, Bundles reveals much new information about Walker's close and complicated relationship with her daughter and develops the stories behind her alliances with other African American giants like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells Barnett, A. Philip Randolph and Marcus Garvey. ON HER OWN GROUND is not only the first comprehensive glimpse into the life of one of recent history's most amazing businesswomen and philanthropists, it is the story of a woman who is truly an African American icon.

About the Author:
A'Lelia Bundles—an Emmy Award-winning network television news producer is a former ABC News Washington Deputy Bureau Chief and former Director of Talent Development for ABC News in Washington and New York. Widely considered an authority of the life of her great great grandmother, Madam C.J. Walker, she is the author of numerous essays, articles and encyclopedia entries about Madam C. J. Walker and her young-adult biography , Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur, won an American Book Award. She lives in Washington, DC, and currently is at work on a biography of her great-grandmother A'Lelia Walker. She can be reached at www.madamcjwalker.com.

Contact:  A'Lelia Bundles 202-363-4191 | Via e-mail: ABundles@gmail.com

ON HER OWN GROUND: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker
A'Lelia Bundles
A Washington Square Press Trade Paperback
Publication Date: January 2, 2002
ISBN: 0-7434-3172-3
Price: $15.95

A'Lelia Bundles, Madam C. J. Walker's great-great-granddaughter, reveals surprising and new information about this amazing entrepreneur, philanthropist and political activist in her national best-selling biography, ON HER OWN GROUND: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker (A Washington Square Press Trade Paperback; January 2, 2002). An Emmy Award-winning network television news producer and former ABC News executive, she recently ended a thirty year career in network news to devote her time to writing a biography of her great-grandmother, A'Lelia Walker, to public speaking  and to serving on three non-profit boards.

"As Madam Walker's biographer, and as a journalist who loves a well-told tale, I have always believed that her story deserved a large loom on which to weave the dimensions of her unusual life with the broad themes and major events of American history," says Bundles. 

As the only author with complete access to Walker's personal letters and business records, Bundles provides an enthralling portrait of Walker's childhood, family life and business secrets, as well as her relationships with other early twentieth century giants like Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. As a family member who has been able to draw upon a rich oral history and relationships with Walker's friends and former employees, Bundles brings an unmatchable credibility and intimacy to the story.

A tireless keeper of her family legacy, Bundles spearheaded the national campaign, which led to the 1998 United States Postal Service's Black Heritage Series stamp of Madam Walker. In 1992 her young adult biography, Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur (Chelsea House, 1991), received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and was named a Best Book for the Teen Age by the New York Public Library. Most recently, Own Her Own Ground recently received the 2001 Letitia Woods Brown Prize for the Best Book on Black Women's History, from The Association of Black Women Historians.

Widely considered the authority on Walker's life, Bundles's essays and articles have appeared in several encyclopedias, books and magazines. Most recently her writing has been featured in Fortune Small Business, Black Issues Book Review, Essence, Heart and Soul and The New York Times.

She is a member of the boards of the Madam Walker Theatre Center  and the Foundation for the National Archives. A graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She lives in Washington, DC, and is currently at work on a biography of her great-grandmother A'Lelia Walker. She can be reached at www.madamcjwalker.com.

 Madam C. J. Walker  Quotations

Against All Odds

"I had little or no opportunity when I started out in life, having been left an orphan, and being without either mother or father since I was seven years of age. I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it. That is why I want to say to every woman present: don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come, but you have to get up and make them."

Secret to Success

"If I have accomplished anything in life it is because I have been willing to work hard. I never yet started anything doubtingly, and I have always believed in keeping at things with a vim."

"I want you to know that whatever I have accomplished in life I have paid for it by much thought and hard work. If there is any easy way I haven't found it. If you expect to build up a successful business, you must make up your mind to work and work hard. My advice to every one expecting to go into business is to hit often and hit hard; in other words, strike with all your might."

"I have made out of my business more money than has been made by any other Negro business man or woman. Now I am not saying that merely to brag about it, for just to the contrary, my only object in appearing before you this evening is to encourage you...I hope you will fully realize that what I have done, you can do. "

Philanthropy/Responsibility to Others

"My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself in dressing or running around in an automobile, but I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others."

"I shall expect to find my agents taking the lead in every locality not only in operating a successful business, but in every movement in the interest of our colored citizenship."

Women's Economic Independence

"The girls and women of our race must not be afraid to take hold of business endeavor and, by patient industry, close economy, determined effort, and close application to business, wring success out of a number of business opportunities that lie at their very doors."

"I have made it possible for many colored women to abandon the wash-tub for more pleasant and profitable occupation."

Men and Women

"If the truth were known, there are many women who are responsible for the success of you men."

Humble Beginnings

"I am not ashamed of my past; I am not ashamed of my humble beginning. Don't think because you have to go down in the wash-tub that you are any less a lady!"

On Hair

"Right here let me correct the erroneous impression held by some that I claim to straighten hair. I deplore such impression because I have always held myself out as a hair culturist. I grow hair. I have absolute faith in my mission. I want the great masses of my people to take a greater pride in their appearance and to give their hair proper attention. . .I dare say that in the next ten years it will be a rare thing to see a kinky head of hair and it will not be straight either."

What Others Had To Say

"A treasure" that "takes readers on an engrossing tour of a neglected corner of American history."

—Publishers Weekly

"More than a biography, this book reads at times like a novel, a true life mystery, and an inspirational call to arms to not only Black women, but all women who struggle for economic independence and social justice."

—Jill Nelson, editor, Police Brutality

"Understanding Walker is the key to understanding her generation. This will become the definitive work on Walker."

—Ishmael Reed, MacArthur Fellow

"A high readable, balanced, and richly textured work about a person of great historical significance."

—Willard Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite 1880-1920

"This is a fantastic book! Bundles has skillfully and engrossingly portrayed Walker in struggle and in resplendence."

—Julianne Malveaux, Wall Street, Main Street & Side Street

"Bundles' well-paced and well-written book is as much a social history as biography, filled with the detail and texture of culture and politics."

—The New York Times

 "On Her Own Ground is a fascinating book about a fascinating woman. [Bundles'] access to her family's historical documents, records and even former employees and associates has produced an impressive book. Just as important as the exhaustive research, Bundles has produced a well-written book."

—USA Today

"Vividly recounts the rise of the washerwoman who would light the way for other black businesswomen, bankroll YMCAs and lead an anti-lynching campaign all the way to the White House."

—People Magazine