70 Quotes by A'Lelia Bundles

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.

I have lived almost seven decades. So I've had my hair journey where I wasn't comfortable with my hair.

There are literally hundreds of stories about women of color that haven't been told that are amazing, fantastic, better than anything else.

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.

We didn't sit around the dining table talking about Madam Walker, but the silverware that we used every day had her monogram on it and our china for special occasions had been Madam Walker's china... and the baby grand piano on which I learned to read music had been in A'Lelia Walker's apartment in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.

Women of African descent, since the beginning of time, have altered their hair, decorated it and used it to designate status.

Madam Walker's name gets thrown out as either the savior of black women's hair or she's the evil devil.

Wearing your hair natural is a positive statement about who you are. It's not a protest to somebody else. It's affirming you.

The saying was that Madam Walker made the money, and her daughter - my great-grandmother - spent it.