
On Her Own Ground
The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker
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Narrated by:
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A'Lelia Bundles
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By:
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A'Lelia Bundles
About this listen
Now a Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer, Self Made (formerly titled On Her Own Ground) is the first full-scale biography of “one of the great success stories of American history” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Madam C.J. Walker - the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist - by her great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles.
The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985, amassing wealth unprecedented among Black women, and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed friendships with great 20th-century political figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.
“A’Lelia Bundles always knew, on some level, that this story was hers to tell. And she tells it with a controlled passion and an integrity that would have made Madam Walker proud” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution). “Well-paced and well-written...as much social history as biography, filled with the detail and texture of culture and politics” (The New York Times), Self Made is enriched by the author’s exclusive access to personal letters and records from the family collection. Bundles also showcases Walker’s complex relationship with her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, a celebrated hostess of the Harlem Renaissance and renowned friend to both Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.
“More than a history lesson in her rise to fame, On Her Own Ground offers inspiration to women - regardless of race - on how to succeed against all odds” (Chicago Sun-Times).
©2001 A'Lelia Bundles (P)2020 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a White businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.
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Not your story to tell
- By Bianca S on 11-22-20
By: Chip Jones
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Black Women Will Save the World
- An Anthem
- By: April Ryan
- Narrated by: April Ryan
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this long-overdue celebration of Black women’s resilience and unheralded strength, the revered, trailblazing White House correspondent reflects on “The Year That Changed Everything”—2020—and African-American women’s unprecedented role in upholding democracy.
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An excellent start, but still a ways to go
- By Buretto on 12-17-22
By: April Ryan
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That Bird Has My Wings
- The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row
- By: Jarvis Jay Masters
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1990, while serving a sentence in San Quentin for armed robbery, Jarvis Jay Masters was implicated as an accessory in the murder of a prison guard. A 23-year-old Black man, Jarvis was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. While in the maximum security section of Death Row, using the only instrument available to him—a ball-point pen filler—Masters's astounding memoir is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer.
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Amazing books !
- By HD on 12-12-22
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Machiavelli for Women
- Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace
- By: Stacey Vanek Smith
- Narrated by: Stacey Vanek Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Women have been making strides towards equality for decades, or so we’re often told. They’ve been increasingly entering male-dominated areas of the workforce and consistently surpassing their male peers in grades, university attendance, and degrees. They’ve recently stormed the political arena with a vengeance. But despite all of this, the payoff is—quite literally—not there: the gender pay gap has held steady at about 20% since 2000. And the number of female CEOs for Fortune 500 companies has actually been declining.
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Hard lessons served with wit, warmth and hope
- By Lyle Beefelt on 10-14-21
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Sisters of the Great War
- By: Suzanne Feldman
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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August 1914. While Europe enters a brutal conflict unlike any waged before, the Duncan household in Baltimore, Maryland, is the setting for a different struggle. Ruth and Elise Duncan long to escape the roles that society, and their controlling father, demand they play. Together, the sisters volunteer for the war effort - Ruth as a nurse, Elise as a driver.
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Sisters, war, and romance
- By Lindsey Wuest on 12-09-21
By: Suzanne Feldman
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Who Says I Can't
- The Astonishing Story of a Fearless Life
- By: Rob Mendez
- Narrated by: Zach Hoffman
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On paper, Coach Rob Mendez sounds like any other football coach on any other field across America: passionate, authoritative, knowledgeable. But he’s unlike any other coach you know - in fact, he’s probably unlike any other person you know. Born with an extraordinarily rare condition called tetra-Amelia syndrome, Rob has no arms or legs. He moves with the assistance of a custom-made, motorized wheelchair that he operates with his back and shoulders.
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Fantastic!
- By Jennifer on 05-01-23
By: Rob Mendez
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Chaos Theory
- Finding Meaning in the Madness, One Bad Decision at a Time
- By: Leah McSweeney
- Narrated by: Leah McSweeney
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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If there’s one thing Leah McSweeney knows for sure, it’s that life never quite gives you what you expect. Her road to success as an entrepreneur and Real Housewives breakout star has been paved with unexpected chances, soul-crushing challenges, and, for too long, chaos.
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Whinning Book
- By Amazon Customer on 01-16-24
By: Leah McSweeney
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In Miniature
- How Small Things Illuminate the World
- By: Simon Garfield
- Narrated by: Adrian Scarborough
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling, award-winning writer Simon Garfield returns with an enthralling investigation of humans’ peculiar fascination with small things - and what small things tell us about our larger world.
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Delightful exploration of miniatures
- By RJ on 05-30-19
By: Simon Garfield
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Short Life in a Strange World
- Birth to Death in 42 Panels
- By: Toby Ferris
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2012, facing the death of his father and impending fatherhood, Toby Ferris set off on a seemingly quixotic mission to track down and look at - in situ - every painting still in existence by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most influential and important artist of Northern Renaissance painting. The result of that pursuit is a remarkable journey through major European cities and across continents. As Ferris takes a keen analytical eye to the paintings, each piece brings new revelations about Bruegel’s art, and gives way to meditations on mortality, fatherhood, and life.
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Luminous
- By GM on 03-30-25
By: Toby Ferris
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The Nightingale's Castle
- A Novel of Erzsébet Báthory, the Blood Countess
- By: Sonia Velton
- Narrated by: Elinor Coleman
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1573, Countess Erzsébet Báthory gives birth to an illegitimate child. Secretly taken to a peasant family living in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, the infant girl is raised as their own. Years later, a young woman called Boróka—ignorant of her true history—is sent to join the Countess’s household. Terrified of the Countess’s murderous reputation and the brutally cruel women who run the castle, Boróka struggles to find her place. Then plague breaches the castle’s walls, and a tentative bond unexpectedly forms between the girl and the Countess.
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Mixed Thoughts - Fantastic Audio Performance
- By Darcia Helle on 08-31-24
By: Sonia Velton
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The Agitators
- Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
- By: Dorothy Wickenden
- Narrated by: Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey, Gabra Zackman, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward. Through exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country.
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Excellent!
- By Nikki on 12-22-21
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Red Island House
- A Novel
- By: Andrea Lee
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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“People do mysterious things when they think they have found paradise,” reflects Shay, the heroine of Red Island House. When Shay, an intrepid Black American professor, marries Senna, a brash Italian businessman, she doesn’t imagine that her life’s greatest adventure will carry her far beyond their home in Milan: to an idyllic stretch of beach in Madagascar where Senna builds a flamboyant vacation villa. Before she knows it, she becomes the reluctant mistress of a sprawling household.
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Good
- By kat on 04-04-21
By: Andrea Lee
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Cat Tale
- The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther
- By: Craig Pittman
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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It wasn’t so long ago when a lot of people thought the Florida panther was extinct. They were very nearly right. That the panther still exists at all is a miracle - the result of a desperate experiment that led to the most remarkable comeback in the history of the Endangered Species Act. And no one has told the whole story - until now.
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Cautionary tale
- By Kaysi12 on 02-27-20
By: Craig Pittman
What listeners say about On Her Own Ground
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- catriona
- 07-17-22
tedious telling
I wish this incredible story was told in a less stilted and tedious way. I persisted in listening because the historical details were important and interesting, but so disappointed with the telling.
I actually listened at 1.25 speed, and that made it more bearable
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- Ashley
- 05-24-20
Loved it!
I loved how in depth it went. We only learn about the top layer of Madam C. J. Walker's life but this book gives you more. I could see everything that she was saying. How could you not root for Madam C. J. Walker!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bronx Brenda NYC
- 08-10-22
Great content & well researched subject matter
Excellent story! In depth and well written. Nothing like the Netflix movie which was very “Disney” like. This is the real, true story of a phenomenal human being. My only wish is that the Author had hired a professional narrator. Her reading was OK but entirely too dramatic. Emphasis on random words/phrases made it border on a comical reading. Still, I highly recommend it.
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- Mrs. C
- 09-05-21
Much better than the mini series.
Enjoyed listening to the history of a lesser known American or at least one that didn't show up in my history books as a child. Too bad the movie from this title didn't stay true to her life story which was way more interesting.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-28-20
Well Written History.
I throughly enjoyed reading Bundles’s work. It is a must read for anyone interested in a scholarly, yet entertaining account of the life and times of Madam Walker. The author does her ancestor much justice in demonstrating her role as major player in early 20th century race leadership and uplift.
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3 people found this helpful
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- LuLu
- 03-16-21
Interesting read
The performance and text of this story was enlightening. Taught me a lot about what growing up in the South as a black female was like. Painful at times but overall l enjoyed the book. I did feel there was far more attention given to the amount of money made than needed for the story to be told. Narration was even and enjoyable. I would recommend for a glimpse into history.
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- Lena Franklin
- 05-24-20
Great Story
I loved hearing all the history of this time period. Black women been bad ass.
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- mike
- 01-29-21
sueb
enjoyed reading about madame walker but found the reader voice annoying... very monotone and lacked decent expression. the reader was more of a documentary and an auto biography. highly recommend another version of the same book.
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- AnaisKarim
- 01-20-23
True Facts
I enjoyed listening to this book and learning the true facts that were left out of the Netflix series. If you are at all interested in facts over dramatic license, this is a must read! This time period does not get enough truthful evaluation so this book is also an invaluable work from a historical perspective. Read it!
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- Akau Anyieth
- 07-01-20
I loved it!
I loved it! Author and reader A'Lelia Bundles is thorough in her writing. she paints a clear picture of CJ Walker's life and the racial environment in which Ms Walker lived. If you want information more specific to CJ Walker with less information about the racial climate, then I recommend the African Americans of Achievement book about her, also by A'Lelia Bundles. If you want to know as much as possible, then this is the book. Or just get both, my personal choice.
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4 people found this helpful