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.
Every ethnic group has a mythology... Until 'Roots'... there was nothing in the popular culture to refute the paragraph in elementary school history class that said, 'Slaves picked the cotton, were happy and life wasn't so bad.'
There was a period of 10 years where the conventional wisdom was Black shows don't sell overseas, therefore nobody is interested.
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.
It takes a long time, I think, to get to the place where you realize you may love the hairstyle that somebody else has.
I began to discover that, in addition to her stunning achievements, there were flaws as there would be in any person's life. I wanted to tell Madam's story in an honest, frank way.
I love people who have really long locs. I love how they can go in different directions or pile it up into a big crown on the head.
I have lived almost seven decades. So I've had my hair journey where I wasn't comfortable with my hair.
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.
If a CEO takes an interest in you and he happens to be an Asian man, then that's great, but as an African-American woman, you want to make sure that if the executive vice-president of the company is an African-American woman that you get to know her.
