A'Lelia Bundles | |
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Born | |
Education | Harvard College (BA) Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (MSJ) |
Occupations |
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Family | A'Lelia Walker (great-grandmother) Madam C. J. Walker (great-great-grandmother) |
Awards | duPont Gold Baton, 1994 American Book Award, 1992 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Book, 2002 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2015 MacDowell Colony Fellowship, 2017 |
A'Lelia Perry Bundles (born June 7, 1952) [2] is an American journalist, news producer and author, known for her 2001 biography of her great-great-grandmother Madam C. J. Walker.
A'Lelia Bundles grew up in Indianapolis in a family of civic minded business executives. She was named after her great-grandmother A'Lelia Walker (1885–1931), a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance [3] and daughter of entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker. Bundles' mother, A'Lelia Mae Perry Bundles (1928–1976), vice president of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company and active in local and state Democratic politics, also served as a member of the Washington Township School Board and was a fiscal administrator with the City of Indianapolis. Her father, S. Henry Bundles, Jr. (1927-2019), [4] became president of Summit Laboratories, another hair care manufacturer, in 1957 after having worked briefly with the Walker Company. He served as an Indianapolis 500 Festival director for many years and was a board member of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau. He was the founding president [4] of the Center for Leadership Development, a youth enrichment organization in Indianapolis.
Bundles graduated in 1970 in the top five per cent of her class from North Central High School, where she was co-editor of the Northern Lights, vice president of student council and co-chair and founder of the human relations council, which addressed racial issues in a student population less than ten percent black. In 1974 Bundles graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges when women admitted to Radcliffe attended classes beside male students at Harvard and received a joint diploma. [5] She was inducted into Harvard's Alpha Iota chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. [6] Bundles received a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1976. [5]
She was a producer and executive with ABC News, serving as director of talent development in Washington, D.C., and New York; as deputy bureau chief in Washington, DC; as a producer for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings; and as chair of a diversity council advising ABC News president David Westin. Prior to joining ABC News, she was a producer with NBC News in the New York, Houston and Atlanta bureaus for The Today Show and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. She also was a producer in Washington, D.C., for two of NBC's magazine programs co-anchored by Connie Chung and Roger Mudd during the 1980s.
Her book, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker (Scribner, 2001), was named a New York Times' Notable Book in 2001, [7] and received the Association of Black Women Historians 2001 Letitia Woods Brown Prize for the best book on black women's history. In 2020, the book was adapted into the Netflix mini-series Self Made starring Octavia Spencer. Bundles' young adult book Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur, (Chelsea House, 1991) received a 1992 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. [8]
She is a trustee emerita [5] of Columbia University and chair emerita of the Board of Directors of the National Archives Foundation. [9]
She is on several nonprofit boards including the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study's Schlesinger Library, the March on Washington Film Festival, [10] Columbia Global Reports [11] and the Women's Suffrage National Monument Foundation. [12] Past board memberships include the Harvard Alumni Association nominating committee, the Harvard Club of Washington, DC board, the Radcliffe College Trustees Board, and the National Women's Hall of Fame board. She was president [13] of the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association from 1999 to 2001 and chaired the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's alumni advisory committee to change the school's alumni organization in 2006. [14]
As Madam C. J. Walker's great-great-granddaughter and biographer, she founded the Madam Walker Family Archives and represents the Walker estate for intellectual property and promotional matters. She is the brand historian [15] for MADAM [16] by Madam C. J. Walker, a line of hair care products manufactured by Sundial Brands (a division of Unilever) in partnership with Walmart.
She collaborated with Mattel on the production of a Madam Walker Barbie as part of Barbie's Inspiring Women Series in August 2022. [17]
Her nonfiction biography, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker was optioned for a 2020 Netflix series, Self Made, starring Octavia Spencer. She has discussed the historical inaccuracies and behind-the-scenes creative differences in several interviews, podcasts and articles including an Andscape article [18] where she wrote "I'd been part of a complex and frustrating dance as my nonfiction, fact-based material was translated from book to movie by scriptwriters whose visions, goals and sensibilities often were quite different from mine...I had been anticipating Hidden Figures. Instead The Real Housewives of Atlanta was staring back at me." [18]
Madam C. J. Walker was an African American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. Multiple sources mention that although other women might have been the first, their wealth is not as well-documented.
Patricia Ireland is an American administrator and feminist. She served as president of the National Organization for Women from 1991 to 2001 and published an autobiography, What Women Want, in 1996.
Shirley Graham Du Bois was an American-Ghanaian writer, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American causes, among others. She won the Messner and the Anisfield-Wolf prizes for her works.
A hot comb is a metal comb that is used to straighten moderate or coarse hair and create a smoother hair texture. A hot comb is heated and used to straighten the hair from the roots. It can be placed directly on the source of heat or it may be electrically heated.
A'Lelia Walker was an American businesswoman and patron of the arts. She was the only surviving child of Madam C. J. Walker, popularly credited as being the first self-made female millionaire in the United States and one of the first African American millionaires.
Indiana Avenue is a historic area in downtown and is one of seven designated cultural districts in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indiana Avenue was, during its glory days, an African American cultural center of the area. The Indiana Avenue Historic District within the area was designated a United States national historic district in 1987.
Caroline Walker Bynum, FBA is a Medieval scholar from the United States. She is a University Professor emerita at Columbia University and Professor emerita of Western Medieval History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She was the first woman to be appointed University Professor at Columbia. She is former Dean of Columbia's School of General Studies, served as president of the American Historical Association in 1996, and President of the Medieval Academy of America in 1997–1998.
The Madam C. J. Walker Building, which houses the Madam Walker Legacy Center, was built in 1927 in the city of Indianapolis, in the U.S. state of Indiana, and as Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991. The four-story, multi-purpose Walker Building was named in honor of Madam C. J. Walker, the African American hair care and beauty products entrepreneur who founded the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, and designed by the Indianapolis architectural firm of Rubush & Hunter. The building served as the world headquarters for Walker's company, as well as entertainment, business, and commercial hub along Indiana Avenue for the city's African American community from the 1920s to the 1950s. The historic gathering place and venue for community events and arts and cultural programs were saved from demolition in the 1970s. The restored building, which includes African, Egyptian, and Moorish designs, is one of the few remaining African-Art Deco buildings in the United States. The Walker Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Stanley Earl Nelson Jr. is an American documentary filmmaker and a MacArthur Fellow known as a director, writer and producer of documentaries examining African-American history and experiences. He is a recipient of the 2013 National Humanities Medal from President Obama. He has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Villa Lewaro, is a 34-room 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) mansion located at Fargo Lane and North Broadway in Irvington, New York, 30 miles north of New York City. It was built from 1916 to 1918, and was designed in the Italianate style by architect Vertner Tandy for A’lelia Walker, for her mother, Madam C.J. Walker. An additional site, the Dark Tower Walker residence with business occupancy, was established in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, thus completing the Walker property portfolio.
Carolene Mays is the executive director of the White River State Park (WRSP) Development Commission. She was appointed by Governor Eric Holcomb having first been appointed in 2016 by Governor Mike Pence. She is also co-host of Community Link on WISH-TV.
The Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company was a cosmetics manufacturer incorporated in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1910 by Madam C. J. Walker. It was best known for its African-American cosmetics and hair care products, and considered the most widely known and financially successful African-American-owned business of the early twentieth century. The Walker Company ceased operations in July 1981.
Freeman Briley Ransom (1880–1947) was an American lawyer, businessman and civic activist in Indianapolis, Indiana. From 1910 until his death he served as legal counsel to Madam C. J. Walker and the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Robert Brokenburr was his law partner.
Letitia Woods Brown was an African American researcher and historian. Earning a master's degree in 1935 from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in 1966 from Harvard University, she served as a researcher and historian for over four decades and became one of the first black woman to earn a PhD from Harvard University in history. As a teacher, she started her career in Macon County, Alabama, between 1935 and 1936. Later in 1937, she became Tuskegee Institute's instructor in history but left in 1940. Between 1940 and 1945 she worked at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee, as a tutor. From 1968 to 1971, she served as a Fulbright lecturer at Monash University and Australia National University followed by a period in 1971 working as a consultant at the Federal Executive Institute. Between 1971 and 1976 she served as a history professor in the African-American faculty of George Washington University and became the first full-time black member. She also served as a primary consultant for the Schlesinger Library’s Black Women Oral History project during the course of her professional career. Aside from teaching history, Brown wrote and contributed to books on Washington, D.C., such as Washington from Banneker to Douglas, 1791 – 1870 and Washington in the New Era, 1870 – 1970.
Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker is an American drama streaming television limited series, based on the biography On Her Own Ground by A'Lelia Bundles, that premiered on March 20, 2020, on Netflix. It received generally positive reviews with praise for Octavia Spencer's performance; however it received criticism for various historical inaccuracies and artistic licence. For her performance, Spencer received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
Lucille Campbell Green Randolph was an early graduate of Madam C. J. Walker's Lelia Beauty College, opening and running a successful salon in New York City. She was married to the civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph and was able to finance his newspaper The Messenger.
Arsania M. Williams was an American educator and clubwoman based in St. Louis, Missouri. She taught for over fifty years in segregated schools, and was president of the Missouri State Association of Negro Teachers, the Missouri Association of Colored Women, and the St. Louis Association of Colored Women. She held national leadership roles in the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).
George Henry Jackson (1847–1925) was a Canadian-born American politician, lawyer, educator, and businessman. He served in the Ohio House of Representatives for Hamilton County, from 1892 to 1893. He was a Republican.
The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation is an American literary nonprofit organization that supports the development and careers of Black writers. The Foundation provides classes, workshops, an annual conference, and offers the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the North Star Award, among others. Writer Marita Golden and cultural historian Clyde McElvene founded the organization in 1990.