A’Lelia Bundles signs a copy of her biography about Madam C.J. Walker at the Old Court House Museum Saturday.(The Vicksburg Post/C. Todd Sherman)

[11/4/01]After her first scheduled trip to Vicksburg was canceled by the events of Sept. 11, A’Lelia Bundles was in town Saturday night to speak about the life of her great-great-grandmother, Madam C.J. Walker.

Bundles, the executive director of talent development for ABC News, works in Washington, D.C., and New York. She was originally scheduled to speak here on Sept. 15, but had to postpone her trip after the nation’s airports were shut down following the terrorist attacks.

“My stress level immediately reduced as soon as I got off the plane in Jackson,” Bundles jokingly told the 25 people who attended the lecture and book signing at the Old Court House Museum.

But Bundles wasn’t there to talk about terrorism or the war in Afghanistan. Instead, she shared the story of Walker, a woman born to former slaves in the village of Delta less than a decade after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Walker, born Sarah Breedlove in 1867, nurtured a small line of cosmetics and hair-care products into a national business that employed nearly 20,000 people by the time of her death in New York in 1919.

“On Her Own Ground, The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker” is the result of 25 years of research by Bundles.

“Researching the book was a real labor of love,” Bundles said. “When we grew up, the silverware we used had her initials on it.”

Shortly after contacting local historians for help researching the book, Bundles first visited the home of her ancestor. Saturday, she thanked many of the local people who helped her with the book, including Gordon Cotton, director and curator of the Old Court House Museum, for a mistake he caught in the original manuscript.

“I would have been really embarrassed to have had the wrong number of states in the Confederacy,” she said.

The book chronicles Walker’s childhood in Delta and Vicksburg, where she worked as a laborer until 1888.

Life in this area for the child of former slaves was hard, Bundles said, and offered little hope for the future.

“But something would happen that would change her life forever,” she said. “Her hair started falling out.”

Bundles said that Walker would later tell people that a man came to her in her dreams and told her the ingredients to make the concoction that would lead her to fame and fortune.

“I don’t believe that is the whole truth, but it was a good story,” Bundles said.

Aside from her success in business, Walker was also an advocate for racial and gender equality. Today, her face adorns the walls of many museums as well as a stamp that the U.S. Postal Service issued in 1998 after a national campaign led by Bundles.