For many years Madam Walker was just a little footnote in history. As a woman who made haircare products, she was really consigned to something trivial.
I've always been fascinated by Madam Walker's ability to use her money for political causes. I find her story so inspires people that it gives me great joy to share the story.
If you wear your hair straight or natural, it's all fine with me. It doesn't mean that you aren't politically conscious or that you don't have good thoughts about progress.
Natural hair is just my personal preference.
Madame Walker selected Indianapolis as the headquarters for her growing business more than a century ago in 1910 because of its central location and thriving black business community.
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'd seen how 'Green Book' had been a box-office hit, but left pianist Don Shirley's family feeling betrayed because his life and relationships had been distorted.
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.
She used her wealth and philanthropy to contribute to Black schools and colleges, she gave the largest gift the NAACP had ever received to it's anti-lynching fund... Madam Walker's life was one of transformation and re-invention.
Inner confidence is what makes us successful.
