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Generous Mentor: One of Alex Haley's `literary children' talks about how she received priceless guidance and preparation in her early role as one of Haley's researchers to become the author she is today.
In BIBR's July-August 2001 issue, Madam C.J. Walker biographer A'Lelia Bundles (who is also Walker's great-great-granddaughter) recalled the ground-breaking impact of Alex Haley's Roots on American popular culture when it was first published twenty-five years ago. In this issue, Bundles continues with more personal recollections of the generous mentor who always shared his knowledge, access and experience, and encouragment with younger black writers.
As Alex Haley described his fascination with Madam C.J. Walker, my great-great-grandmother, I listened eagerly, barely touching the butter-drenched scallops on the plate before me. "We envision a sweeping biographical novel and a miniseries," he said, his soothing bass voice flavored with the sweet sorghum tones of his Tennessee childhood. It was 1982, and I was a 29-year-old aspiring network news producer. Sharing the dinner table with me and the celebrated author of Roots were two longtime family friends: filmmaker Stanley Nelson (who had recently begun Work on a PBS documentary about Madam Walker) and his mother, A'Lelia Ransom Nelson. The mother, too, of author Jill Nelson, Mrs. Nelson, who died earlier this year at age 82, was the daughter of Madam Walker's attorney and business partner, F.B. Ransom, and the godchild of Madam Walker's daughter, A'Lelia. A'Lelia Nelson was a librarian by training and profession, but she also served as president of the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company for more than two decades.
Throughout the conversation that spring evening nearly twenty years ago, Alex called the names of the impressive group of actors, producers and writers he hoped to involve in the television movie. At first I was almost too awestruck to speak. Then, as he proposed hiring "seven or eight researchers," words rushed from my mouth: "Mr. Haley," I said, hoping not to sound too presumptuous in the presence of the first and only Pulitzer prizewinner I had ever met, "I wrote my master's paper about Madam Walker a few years ago, and I've already done a lot of research. I'd be happy to help in any way I can."
By the time we said good night...