Report of the Sixth Annual Convention of the National Negro Business League held in New York City, Aug. 16th–18th, 1905.
Report of the 13th Annual Convention of the NNBL held at Chicago, Illinois, Aug. 21–23, 1912.
Report of the 14th Annual Convention of the National Negro Business League, Philadelphia, Aug. 20, 21, 22, 1913 (Washington, DC: William H. Davis, Official Stenographer).
Annual Report of the 15th Annual Convention of the National Negro Business League, Muskogee, Oklahoma, Aug. 19–21, 1914 ( Nashville: AME Sunday School Union, 1914 ).
National Negro Business League Annual Report of the Sixteenth Session and the FifteenthAnniversary Convention, Aug. 18–20, 1915, LOC Microfilm.
National Negro Business League Report of the Seventeenth Annual Session, Kansas City, Missouri, Aug. 16–18, 1916 ( Washington, DC: William H. Davis, 1916 ).
National Negro Business League Report of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Annual Sessions, Chattanooga, Tenn., 1917, and Atlantic City, NJ, 1918 ( Washington, DC: William H.Davis, 1918).
National Negro Cosmetic Manufacturers Association
Minutes of the National Negro Cosmetic Manufacturers Association, Sept. 5, 1917, New York, MWC/IHS.
Poro Company
“Poro” in Pictures with a Short History of Its Development (St. Louis: Poro College, 1926 ).
Second National Poro Convention Souvenir Program (Chicago: July 24–26, 1949 ).
Periodicals, Articles, Essays and Reports
L. M. Campbell Adams, “An Investigation of Housing and Living Conditions in Three Districts of Indianapolis,” Indiana University Bulletin, Indiana University Studies, Vol. 8, No. 8 (Sept. 1910).
Albert Anderson, “The Amazing Inside Story of the Malone Case,” The Light and “Heebie Jeebies,” Vol. 3, No. 13, Chicago, Feb. 19, 1927.
Rose Atwood, “Frederick Douglass Memorial,” The Competitor, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Feb.1920).
Jonathan Beasley, “Blacks—Slave and Free—Vicksburg, 1850–1860,” Journal of Mississippi History, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Feb. 1976).
Konrad Bercovici, “The Black Blocks of Manhattan,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, nd (after 1923), Gumby Scrapbooks, Vol. 40/41, LLCU.
Carolyn Brady, “Indianapolis and the Great Migration, 1900–1920,” Black History News & Notes, No. 65 (Aug. 1996).
Josephine B. Bruce, “The Afterglow of the Women’s Convention,” Voice of the Negro, Nov. 1904.
Nannie Helen Burroughs, “Not Color But Character,” Voice of the Negro, July 1904.
Civic League of St. Louis, “The Smoke Nuisance; Report of the Smoke Abatement Committee of the Civic League” (St. Louis: The Civic League of St. Louis, 1906), in Selwyn K. Troen and Glen E. Holt, St. Louis (New York: New Viewpoints, 1977).
Katharine T. Corbett and Mary E. Seematter, “Black St. Louis at the Turn of the Century,” Gateway Heritage, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Summer 1986 ).
James G. Dauphine, “The Knights of the White Camellia and the Election of 1868: Louisiana’s White Terrorists; a Benighting Legacy,” Louisiana History, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring 1989 )
Frances Garside, “Queen of Gotham’s Colored 400,” Literary Digest, Vol. 55 (Oct. 13, 1917).
Mabel K. Hamlin, “Meet Me at Scholtz’s,” Colorado Magazine, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Oct. 1959).
The Indianapolis Study/Flanner House (Indianapolis: Flanner House, 1939 ).
Howard J. Jones, “Biographical Sketches of Members of the 1868 Louisiana State Senate,” Louisiana History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 1978 ).
Michael Lerner, “‘Hoping for a Splendid Summer’: African American St. Louis, Ragtime and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,” Gateway Heritage, Winter 1998–99.
August Meier and David Levering Lewis, “History of the Negro Upper Class in Atlanta, Georgia, 1890–1958,” Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 28 (Spring 1959).
National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, Housing Conditions Among Negroes in Harlem, New York City (New York, 1915).
Pennsylvania Negro Business Directory:Industrial and Material Growth of the Negroes ofPennsylvania,1910 ( Harrisburg, PA: Jas. H. W. Howard & Son, 1910 ).
A. E. Perkins, “Some Negro Officers and Legislators in Louisiana,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 14 (Oct. 1929).
Emmett J. Scott, “Louisiana Purchase Exposition,” Voice of the Negro, Aug. 1904.
Jeffrey E. Smith, “A Mirror Held to St. Louis: William Marion Reedy and the 1904 World’s Fair,” Gateway Heritage, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1998 ).
Matilda Thomas, Speech to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, reprinted in Kentucky New Era, June 22, 1963.
Katherine D. Tillman, “Paying Professions for Colored Girls” Voice of the Negro, Jan. and Feb. 1907.
Charles Vincent, “Negro Leadership and Programs in the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1868,” Louisiana History, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Fall 1969 ).
Harry B. Webber, “Grim Awakening to Her Future Was Incentive to Mme. Walker,” Pittsburgh Courier, Mar. 15, 1952.
Fannie Barrier Williams, “The Colored Girl,” Voice of the Negro, June 1905.
Lillian S. Williams, “And Still I Rise: Black Women and Reform, Buffalo, New York, 1900–1940,” in Darlene Clark Hine, Wilma King and Linda Reed, eds., We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible ( Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1995 ).
Sue Ann Wood, “The 1904 World’s Fair,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch Magazine (reprint), June 16, 1996.
Newspapers
Chicago Bee
Chicago Defender
Denver Statesman
Indianapolis Freeman
Indianapolis Recorder
Indianapolis World
Inter-State Tattler
Madison Journal
New York Age
Pittsburgh Courier
Richmond Compiler
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Republic
Washington Afro-American
Pamphlets
Historical and Descriptive Review of Denver (Denver: Jno. Lathem, circa 1902 ).
Marjorie Stewart Joyner, “The Saga of the First Woman Millionaire Manufacturer” (convention booklet circa 1946–48 ).
R. C. Overton, The First Ninety Years: An Historical Sketch of the Burlington Railroad 1850–1940 (Chicago: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 1940 ).
G. Richard Peck, The Rise and Fall of Camp Sherman (Chillicothe: U.S. National Park Service, 1972 ).
Violet Reynolds, “The Story of a Remarkable Woman” ( Indianapolis: The Madam C. J. Walker Mfg. Co., 1973 ).
The Saint Louis of To-Day Illustrated: An Artistic Presentation of Her Business Interests (St. Louis: The Western Commercial Travelers’ Association, 1888 ).
Seeing Denver (Denver: American Sight-seeing Car & Coach Company, 1904 ).
City Directories
Denver City Directories, 1890–1920
Indianapolis City Directories, 1909–1920
St. Louis City Directories, 1879–1908
Vicksburg City Directory, 1877
Unpublished Master’s Papers and Doctoral Dissertations
Carson A. Anderson, “The Architectural Practice of Vertner W. Tandy: An Evaluation of the Professional and Social Position of a Black Architect,” master’s thesis, University of Virginia School of Architecture, 1982.
Clyde Nickerson Bolden, “Indiana Avenue: Black Entertainment Boulevard,” MCP thesis, Boston University School of Planning, 1983.
Lawrence Oland Christensen, “Black St. Louis: A Study in Race Relations 1865–1916,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri, Dec. 1972.
Alonzo Moron, “Distribution of the Negro Population in Pittsburgh, 1910–1930,” MA thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1933 (University of Pittsburgh, Hillman Library, microfilm).
Gwendolyn Robinson, “Class, Race, and Gender: A Transcultural Theoretical and Sociohistorical Analysis of Cosmetic Institutions and Practices to 1920,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1984 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilm Inte
rnational, 1984 ).
Jacqueline Wolfe, “The Changing Pattern of Residence of the Negro in Pittsburgh,” unpublished MS thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1964 (University of Pittsburgh, Hillman Library).
Unpublished Sources
E. M. Beck, “Listing of Lynching Victims: Mississippi, 1882–1930,” Feb. 26, 1996.
John E. Hale, Jan. 21, 1995, memo, “First Generation,” Canton, MS, Madison County Library Files.
Sarah Hull, “Bea, the Washerwoman,” Federal Writers Project #3709, Southern Historical Collection, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mar. 13, 1939.
“Human Interest Story: Madam Walker,” unpublished essay from Madison Parish Library.
James Arthur Thomas, Jr., Burney and Williamson Family Papers.
Charles Turner Scrapbooks Collection, MHS.
Ida Webb Bryant, “Glimpses of the Negro in Indianapolis—1863–1963,” unpublished manuscript, IHS.
“Inventory of Remains” (from Madison Parish) and accompanying letters from Brig. Gen. H. M. Whittlesey, OCHM.
“The Reminiscences of A. Philip Randolph,” transcript of interview by Wendell Wray, 1972, Oral History Research, Columbia University.
Audio Interviews
Regina and William Andrews —July 8, 1982
Richmond Barthé —Feb. 2, 1983
Margaret Bryant —Sept. 9, 1982
Dick Campbell —Nov. 17, 1982
Jimmie Daniels —July 6, 1982
Marion Moore Day —Nov. 14, 1982
Geraldyn Dismond (Gerri Major) —June 21, 1982
Zenobia “Peg” Fisher —Mar. 20, 1983
Mildred Randolph Foster —Aug. 2, 1982
Revella Hughes —Nov. 19, 1982
Marjorie Stewart Joyner —1981 and Aug. 1, 1982
Vivian Kaufman —Nov. 30, 1982
A’Lelia Ransom Nelson —Dec. 1982
Bruce Nugent —Nov. 11, 1982
Marion R. Perry, Jr. —Jan. 12, 1976, and July 11, 1982
Violet Davis Reynolds —Dec. 26, 1975
Alberta Williams and Lucy Davis —Aug. 7, 1982
Judge Nathan Young —Aug. 5, 1982
Permissions
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published and previously unpublished material:
Ayer Company Publishers/IDA: excerpt from “The Party” from Lyrics of Lowly Life by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Copyright 1898. Reprinted by permission of Ayer Company Publishers/IDA.
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House: excerpt from “The Weary Blues” from Collected Poems by Langston Hughes. Copyright (c) 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes.
Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University: excerpts from Lelia Walker Wilson letter to L’Intransigence. Reprinted by permission of Moorland Research Center, Howard University.
Harold Ober Associates, Inc.: excerpt from “To A’Lelia” by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.: excerpts from “Parties” from The Big Seaby Langston Hughes. Copyright 1940 by Langston Hughes. Copyright renewed 1968 by Arna Bontemps and George Houston Bass. Reprinted by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.
Pat Thompson/Thompson and Thompson: excerpt from “From the Dark Tower” from Copper Sun by Countee Cullen. Copyright 1927 by Harper & Bros., New York. Renewed: 1954 Ida M. Cullen.
Acknowledgments
Most of all, On Her Own Ground has been a labor of love. That labor, of course, has been made much sweeter by the participation of scores of people who have contributed with their personal memories, scholarly research, suggestions, questions, moral support and encouragement. Even at the most difficult moments—and there always are some—I was fortified by the knowledge that so many friends were waiting for the book parties and so many scholars were waiting for the footnotes.
Of course, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to several historians and biographers who have been generous with both their time and their scholarship. Just as it has been my good fortune that my family inheritance from Madam Walker was the gift of a phenomenal story, so have I also had the advantage of conducting my research during the last three decades of the twentieth century when the history of African Americans and of women has flourished as never before both at the university and in popular culture. With the caveat that I know I have forgotten someone essential, I must single out a few who, in some instances, have been a part of this journey almost as long as I have been on it.
First I must give special thanks to historian Adele Logan Alexander, whose friendship and eagerness to share research I have valued ever since we discovered nearly twenty years ago that our grandmothers had known each other. To Gordon Cotton of the Old Court House Museum in Vicksburg, who has never failed to go out of his way to answer my most obscure questions. To Phyllis Garland, my adviser at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, who guided me through my first serious attempt at telling this story. To Willard Gatewood, whose books, Aristocrats of Color and Slave and Freeman: The Autobiography of George Knox, served as important sources, and who has been extremely generous in sharing precious gems of information. To archivist Wilma Gibbs, whose stewardship of the Madam Walker Collection at the Indiana Historical Society provides me with the assurance that the papers are in excellent hands, and whose early reading of the manuscript kept me on the right track. To Paula Giddings, whose When and Where I Enter helped pave the way for much of today’s scholarship on black women and whose discovery of harpist Frances Spencer’s story found its way into these pages. To the late Nathan Irvin Huggins, who willingly gave advice when I was a graduate student, then arranged for me to write Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur, my young adult biography, while he was a senior consulting editor at Chelsea House Publishers. To Carl Van Vechten’s biographer Bruce Kellner, whose book The Harlem Renaissance: A Historical Dictionary for the Era remained next to my Webster’s and Roget’s and whose tough and thoughtful questions pushed me. To David Levering Lewis, whose beautifully crafted books—When Harlem Was in Vogue and W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race—set a high bar and who kindly introduced me to one of his longtime researchers. To Nell Irvin Painter, whose seminal scholarship in The Exodusters illuminated late-nineteenth-century Louisiana and Mississippi, and who provided an intellectual role model for me when I was still a college student. To Arnold Rampersad, whose devotion to the art of biography inspires me and who took my work seriously long before I had anything on paper. To Kathy Peiss, whose work on women in the cosmetics and hair care industries has given it credibility as an area worthy of scholarly pursuit. To Coy D. Robbins, Jr., a gifted and meticulous genealogist whose vast knowledge of African Americans in Indiana introduced me to another amazing branch of my family tree—with roots in the Revolutionary War, no less—about whom I knew almost nothing. To Juliet E. K. Walker, whose exhaustive scholarship on the history of black entrepreneurs has been invaluable.
In 1980 as I was moving from Houston to Atlanta, I first learned of R. W. Burney—the man on whose plantation this story began—when I made a fortuitous detour to Delta, Louisiana. A few years later some of his descendants and I began to develop a friendship that continues to this day. I am especially indebted to Captain R. Burney Long, Anna Long Case and their cousin, the late James A. Thomas, who provided access to Burney family papers and helped me understand their own very interesting family.
Researching a biography of this scope requires many hands. I am fortunate to have had, at various times during the last three years, the assistance of four tireless researchers: James Harper; Charles D. Johnson, who never complained about some of my more obscure requests; Charles Cooney, who is a master at ferreting out lost documents and who persisted until he discovered the Military Intelligence Division records I had wanted for so long; and Natasha Mitchell, whose determination and fresh eye uncovered details about the life of one of Madam Walker’s surprisingly peripate
tic brothers. As well, I am grateful to William R. Sevier and Richard P. Sevier, who combed through documents and ledgers in Louisiana and Mississippi for long-forgotten marriage licenses and property deeds.
It truly requires uncommon commitment to be willing to read downloaded computer files and unbound manuscripts. Thankfully there were many who were willing to do so. I am indebted to Helen Baker, who enthusiastically read each chapter as soon as it was written and who raised perspectives I had not considered. To Avarita Hanson, who has been an enthusiastic advocate of my various Walker “projects” since the mid-1970s and whose insightful questions I hope I have answered adequately in the final manuscript. To Susan McHenry, who edited my first published magazine article about Madam Walker and who cares about this story as much as I do. To Ishmael Reed for long ago helping me believe that I really was a writer. I know I benefited immensely from the helpful suggestions of others who read all or part of the manuscript, including Teri Agins, Desne Crossley, George Curry, Maceo Crenshaw Dailey, Jr., David Evans, Sam Fullwood, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Kenneth Hamilton, Julianne Malveaux, Jill Nelson, Claudia Polley, Cokie Roberts, Lynn Sherr, Bernie Sofronski, Stanley Warren, Cheryl West, Jack E. White, Lillian Williams and Thomas Wirth.
When I first began to research Madam Walker’s life, several Walker Company employees and their families welcomed me into their homes and freely shared their memories. Special thanks to Mary Pendegraph, Alice and William T. Ray, Russell White, Tony and Lucy Reynolds and A’Lelia Ransom Nelson. Although they are gone, I still must express my gratitude to the late Marie Overstreet and Willard B. Ransom, as well as Myrtis Griffin, Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Vivian Kaufman and Violet Reynolds, who were particularly adept at describing the early years of the Walker Company.
During the last three decades, there have been scores of people who have provided their professional expertise, helped me locate essential puzzle pieces, offered wise counsel and, in many instances, were willing to speak with me although we had never met. My thanks to Dr. William Alexander, Carson Anthony Anderson, Reid Badger, Etta Moten Barnett, E. M. Beck, Edward F. Bergman, Timuel Black, Charles Blockson of the Blockson Collection, Robert J. Booker of Knoxville College, Gaynell Theodore Catherine, Paul Coates, Robert DeForrest, Vincent DeForrest, AME Church historiographer Dennis Dickerson, Richard Dozier, Michael Flug of the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection at the Chicago Public Library, Mildred Franklin, Donald Gallup of the Beinecke Collection at Yale University, Bettye Gardner, James Gascho, Earl Graves, Donna Griffin, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Louis R. Harlan, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Robert Hill, Beth Howse and Jean Carney Smith of Special Collections at the Fisk University Library, Dante James, John H. Johnson, Geri Duncan Jones of the American Health and Beauty Aids Institute, John Jordan, Randall Kennedy, Gwendolyn Kenney and her daughters, Linda and Diane Kenney, Susan Krampe of the Fuller Brush Company, Patricia La Pointe of the Memphis Shelby County Public Library, Larry Lester, Jack Lufkin of the State Historical Society of Iowa, Herman “Skip” Mason, Jr., Linda McDowell of the Butler Collection at the Little Rock Public Library, Susan McElrath of the National Archives for Black Women’s History, C. Stuart McGehee of Bluefield, West Virginia’s Craft Memorial Library, Carole Merritt of the Herndon Home, Grace Moore of Philadelphia’s Union Baptist Church, Yvette Moyo, Sally Nichols of the Ross-Chillicothe Convention and Visitors Bureau, Marc Pachter, Raymond Petrie, Basil Phillip, Rick Rennert, Noliwe Rooks, Loren Schweninger, Taronda Spencer of Spelman College, Ruth Ann Stewart, Fred Sweets, Sister Francesca Thompson, Bridget Warren, Steven Watson, Donald West, Daniel Williams of Tuskegee University, Deborah Willis, Diana Willis of the Jamaican Tourist Board and Dr. Sondra Kathryn Wilson.
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