The Black Rose

by Tananarive Due

Book Overview

"One of the most exciting novels of the year . . . The dramatic story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's first black female millionaire."--E. Lynn Harris Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America's first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes. Renowned author Alex Haley became fascinated...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345441567
• ISBN13: 9780345441560
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Random House Group
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Madam CJ. Walker, a Beautiful Person

I am very impressed with this book, could hardly put it down. I do not usually enjoy fiction, but since this is based on fact decided to give it a try. When I was a pre-teen in the 60's I started to listen to a black radio station. (I am of mixed heritage). I remembered the ads for Madam Walkers hair products so when I heard about this book found it interesting. This book provides many lessons for everyone, and Madam Walker is an inspiration. The writing style is excellent too. Both compelling and impressive, I highly recommend it!

Excellent!

Unlike other reviewers, I knew nothing of this remarkable lady. The author held my interest from word one til the very end. And I learned a lot about struggling against the odds.

The Black Rose

Prior to reading this book,I knew very little about Madame C.J. Walker. I knew she became wealthy after starting a hair product company, but after that often told fact,I didn't know very much else. This book not only enlighted me to the facts surrounding her early beginnings to her rise to fame and fortune, it also served to be a very great story. It was very well written, and an instant page turner from start to finish. The Black Rose took the reader through a journey through history and left you thinking of the characters long after the book was finished. If this had been a very strict historical fact based book, I honestly don't think that I would have enjoyed it nearly as much. The fact that the book was a very rare combination of fiction and fact made for an extremely interesting book. A must read for any serious book lover.

A great start to learning about an extraordinary woman

I have a new heroine. Not only did she rise above being black in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but also she rose above being a black woman to become America's first female millionaire. It's an incredible story.Her name is Madame C. J. Walker and her story is fictionalized in Tananarive Due's historical novel, The Black Rose. Based on the research and an extensive outline complete by famed author Alex Haley before his death in 1992, Due weaves a fascinating account of Walker and her times.Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove to freed blacks in 1867. Sarah is proud that she is learning to read and write, and dreams of reading her mother's Bible and someday attending college. Her dreams are crushed when her parents, now tenant farmers on the same Delta, Louisiana, farm where they were once slaves, die of yellow fever in 1874. Eight-year-old Sarah and her siblings are left to struggle for survival on their own. By 1878, the crops were failing and their shack was all but falling down. A year later, Sarah and her sister, Lou, move to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to become washerwomen. The work is grueling but mind numbing. At 14, Sarah marries Moses McWilliams, a man she grows to love with all her heart, but who is killed less than a year later in one of Mississippi's infamous race riots. Devastated and left with a daughter, Lelia, to care for, Sarah moves to St. Louis. Life there is hard, but Sarah still dreams of college, of learning to read without having to struggle with each word. She has her own washing service and begins to save money so that Lelia can someday have the education she was categorically denied. St. Louis' Annie Malone begins a beauty supply business, hiring black women as representatives to sell the products door-to-door. Sarah admires Annie, but her products do not bring relief to her own itchy dandruff and dry scalp that have tormented her since childhood. In an effort to find relief, Sarah and Lelia being concocting different remedies in their kitchen. Thanks to the help of a dream about a field of black roses and the treatment of sulfur to an injury Lelia sustains, Sarah stumbles onto the secret formula that make hair grown-she is a living example that it works. A new business if founded! During this time she meets and marries C. J. Walker, an advertising whiz, and moves her business to Denver. With the help of C. J., but more of her own ambition and determination, Sarah begins her beauty supply business, recruiting women to sell it door-to-door. Before long, Sarah is the most sought after, most powerful woman, in America. Eventually she moves her business to Indianapolis and New York, where there is a more concentrated population of blacks. But the more time she spends working, the less time she has for Lelia and C. J. The three grow estranged and by the time of her death in 1919, Madame C. J. Walker was the wealthiest, loneliest woman in the United States. The Black Rose is more fiction than fa

Silken prose; powerful subject = a great book!

Move over, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Gloria Naylor and forget Terry McMillan altogether. There is a new vibrantly strong, black and female voice in fiction. Ms. Due's prose is as silken and lushly beauteous as the hair she writes about. This novel is the story of Madam C. J. Walker, America's first black female millionaire who made her fortune selling hair care products developed specifically for black women. Beyond that, she was also an untiring (and too unsung) advocate for the potent and often dismissed power of the black woman. Madam Walker, originally Sarah Breedlove, daughter of freed slaves, referring to a comment made by noted educator Mary McLeod Bethune, said "that the world better get used to seeing a black rose,.... Anyone who does not respect Negro womanhood has never seen Negro womanhood as I am seeing it now." There are endless cameo appearances from the world of post-Victorian culture from Booker T. Washington to Enrico Caruso in this seamless mix of documentary and fiction that reads like plum juice down a parched throat in August. Tananarive Due is simply a superb young novelist and this is her best writing yet. There will be greater things to come from her. There's also an Indiana connection to this book. Visitors to Indianapolis will immediately recognize the historic Walker Theatre, located near the former site of the The Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company on West Street.

An Incredible Story!

I had only heard of Madam C.J. Walker by way of hearsay that she was the first black female millionaire. I never knew anything more about her life, her struggles or her cause. So my curiosity got the best of me and I recommended to my bookclub that we educate ourselves on some history. Albeit The Black Rose is a fictionalize account of Madam Walker, I believe that the author did the necessary research to make her account as true to fact as she possibly could.With that said, this is definately by far, the best historical novel I have EVER read. The author did an incredible job with taking us back to Sarah's (nka Madam Walker) childhood so that the readers could understand the very beginning of her life struggles. The book literally walks you through Sarah's life of who she was and who she became but don't let this fool you. Sarah never lost sight of where she came from and even after she gained her wealth, she remained the same well grounded person of whom she grew from. As a reader, you find out about each and every person that Sarah encountered, many of which had some affect on her life in one way or the other. You learn of her family and how they affected her struggles, whether negative or positive. But most important, you learn of Sarah's strength. Considering the time frame that Sarah lived, she surpassed obstacles that not only women but even some men couldn't even dream of.This is a very enriching tale that every African American should read. This book is not just about making money. It's about a real life struggle to make a better life for not just self but for the entire black generation! Once you've read this story, you will immediately realize that had it not been for Madam C.J. Walker, us African Americans would not be where we are today (you'll have to read the book to figure out exactly what I'm talking about because I don't want to give it away).Ms. Due................you have truly outdone yourself with this literary piece of work and I still get goosebumps when I think about reading the last words of your story and recognizing the history I just gained by simple curiosity. Thank you.

Didn't sleep a wink just kept on reading

Even though I will probably feel it in the morning when I go to work it was worth it. This has been the first book in a very long time I have felt so good about. Despite a length of about 350 pages, this book drew me into the world of Sarah Breedlove daughter of sharecroppers who takes a cue from a former employee and reinvents herself as Madam CJ Walker, the 1st black female millionare. It is hard to find a postive African-American woman in books as well as any other media that is not portrayed as someone's trusty old maid, a tragic heroine, or just a woman who sits on the sidelines whether she is the main character or not. I will have to warn, the reader, since this book is not a straight biography, which caused me to shy away from it at first, but more like bio-fiction half novel half biography. The use of this bio-fiction device makes the book more interesting because Due paints the scenes so marvelously. The way Due portrays her main character as child who has to overcome hard circumstances and uses tragedies in her earlier life to become a stronger and successful woman reminded me of Arthur Golden's MEMORIES OF A GEISHA.