Madam Walker History – Blog Posts
The Story Behind Telling Madam C. J. Walker’s Story
When "Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker" -- the Netflix series starring Oscar winner Octavia Spencer -- premieres on March 20, millions of people around the world will hear Madam Walker's name for the first time. Thousands of people, who already...
The Facts about Madam C. J. Walker and Annie Malone
Professor Tyrone McKinley Freeman, who teaches at Indiana University's Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, has described the impulse to compare the fortunes of Madam C. J. Walker (1867 - 1919) and Annie Malone (1877* - 1957) as "the first millionaire sweepstakes." In...
Madam Walker’s Mentors, Sister Friends & Rivals
I’ve written a lot about Madam C. J. Walker’s professional and financial achievements, but to truly understand who she was at her core, I’ve also examined her relationships with other women: her mentors, her sister friends and her rivals. Madam Walker is perhaps best...
The Real A’Lelia Walker Is Much More Interesting Than the Myth
A’Lelia Walker was born 134 years ago today on June 6, 1885. I’ve written a lot about her since I began researching her life during my senior year in high school fifty years ago. I won’t rehash the basic biographical information, which you can find in my book, On Her...
The Centennial of Madam C. J. Walker’s Death – May 25, 1919
On Sunday morning, May 25, 1919 – exactly 100 years ago this weekend – Madam C. J. Walker died at Villa Lewaro, her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York estate. A few hours later in black churches across America, ministers talked of her journey from deep poverty in the...
Madam C. J. Walker’s 150th Birthday (December 23, 2017)
Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867 on the same Delta, Louisiana plantation where her parents and older siblings had been enslaved before the Civil War. Orphaned at seven and a poorly paid washerwoman in St. Louis until she was 38 years...
Madam C. J. Walker’s First National Convention (August 30-31, 1917)
One hundred years ago this week -- on August 30 and August 31, 1917 -- hair care entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker hosted the first annual convention of her sales agents and beauty culturists. More than 200 women gathered at Philadelphia's Union Baptist Church to hear...
Harlem Delegation Visits White House to Protest Lynching – August 1, 1917
July 28 marked the 100th anniversary of the Silent Protest Parade when 10,000 African Americans of all ages marched silently up Fifth Avenue to protest lynchings in America. As they stepped solemnly past thousands of onlookers, the only sounds were the muffled...
Strategy, Service and Serendipity (5-15-2016) Wilson College Commencement
Yesterday I had the privilege of delivering the commencement speech for Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1869, Wilson has been a pioneer in women's education for almost a century and a half. Like many other women's schools, it faced challenges...
Happy 148th Birthday to Madam C. J. Walker!
Today -- December 23, 2015 -- is the 148th anniversary of Madam C. J. Walker's birth! She was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867 in Delta, Louisiana on the same planation where her parents Owen and Minerva Anderson Breedlove had been enslaved. The first child...
The Future of Villa Lewaro: Madam Walker’s Dream of Dreams
During the week of October 19, 2014 the National Trust for Historic Preservation featured Villa Lewaro, Madam Walker's Irvington-on-Hudson, New York estate, on all its social media platforms. This piece that I wrote for the Trust's Preservation Blog also appeared on...
A’Lelia Walker’s 1922 Visit with Ethiopian Empress Zauditu
So finally I am finished with the two chapters (for my forthcoming book Joy Goddess of Harlem: A'Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance) that focus on A'Lelia Walker's November 1921 to April 1922 trip abroad. It's a good thing I didn't know how long it was going to...
Maya Angelou: A Woman without Limitation
Maya Angelou is with the ancestors. Born in 1928, she died peacefully this morning in her own home. She was 86 years old. She was a force. A pioneer. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," "Phenomenal Woman" and "Still I Rise" were staples for many of us black girls and...
“Going Down the Rabbit Hole” in Search of the Joy Goddess
"Going down a rabbit hole." People use this phrase to mean many different things. For anyone whose writing requires research, it usually means following clues until enough dots are connected to create a credible scene. And when writing nonfiction, it really is...
BlackPast.org Features A’Lelia Walker Essay
Many thanks to Quintard Taylor and BlackPast.org for inviting me to write an essay about A'Lelia Walker for Black History Month 2014. Here is the essay as it appears on the website. And please do visit this wonderful, information website for hundreds of articles...
The Niagara Movement: A Distant Personal Connection
Today, July 11, on this anniversary of the Niagara Movement’s inaugural meeting in Buffalo, New York, I’m reminded of how discovering a distant personal connection to that event made an historical moment come alive for me. That connection begins with my grandmother’s November 1923 wedding.
Madam Walker and 20,000 Agents
HOW MADAM WALKER DEVELOPED HER PRODUCTS AND SALES FORCE After selling her line of products from door to door and turning a room of her Denver home into her first salon in 1906, Madam C. J. Walker began visiting the black communities in Colorado's small mining towns....
Madam Walker: Black History Month 2013 #1
I love Black History Month because I learn something new every day! The truth is, I'm already immersed in black history every month, week and day of the year, but in February it feels as if I have lots of company. It seems that whereever I turn, there are websites,...
Madam Walker Honored: A Great Hoosier
Madam C. J. Walker was honored in the inaugural class of Hoosier Legacy Award nominees with a memorial on Georgia Street in Indianapolis on March 2. Descendants of several of the ten iconic Hoosiers joined Mayor Greg Ballard as he unveiled the seven-foot-tall pillars...
Happy Birthday, Madam Walker! Born December 23, 1867)
Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana on December 23, 1867. Her prospects for success were nil. Yet, by the time she died in May 1919 at Villa Lewaro--her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York mansion--she had transformed herself into a...
My Grandmother’s Harlem Renaissance Wedding
Mae Walker’s November 1923 wedding was Harlem’s most elegant, most opulent event of the season. Coordinated with an impresario’s flare by her mother, A’Lelia Walker, the hair care heiress, the nuptials drew guests from three continents. But there was a glitch: the bride was in love with someone else.
Madam Walker and The Doctors Dumas of Natchez
Combine clues in a faded 1916 letter with the algorithms of Facebook and the distance across decades wondrously evaporates…Imagine my delight a few days ago, when the universe again activated those two degrees of separation, this time to photojournalist Joseph Dumas, whose grandfather and great-uncle, had made a brief appearance in On Her Own Ground because of their hospitality to Madam Walker during a visit to Natchez, Mississippi. Read more at https://aleliabundles.com/blog-2/
A Family Perspective: Celebrating Madam Walker’s Legacy
One of my earliest memories of my great-great-grandmother's existence is seeing her monogram on the silverware we used everyday. "CJW" for "C. J. Walker," the name Sarah Breedlove McWilliams adopted after marrying her third husband, Charles Joseph Walker. I grew up in...
Madam Walker’s 1917 Convention: Entrepreneurship & Protest Politics
On August 31, 1917, Madam C. J. Walker hosted the first national convention of her Walker "beauty culturists" at Philadelphia's Union Baptist Church, where a young contralto named Marian Anderson was just beginning to be noticed. More than 200 women from all over the...
A’Lelia Walker’s Grand Harlem Funeral: August 1931
Eighty years ago this month on August 17, 1931--after a lovely day at the beach celebrating a friend's birthday-- A'Lelia Walker, my great-grandmother and namesake, died in Long Branch, New Jersey. She and six pals from Harlem had enjoyed the sea breezes and dined...
Madam Walker’s August Garden
Another 100 degree day! Crazy me has the air conditioning off, the windows open and the ceiling fan on high speed. I think it's my way of communing with the folks I'm writing about because heaven knows it was HOT in A'Lelia Walker's un-air conditioned 136th Street...
Madam Walker Featured on CEO TV
We recently sat down for a wide-ranging discussion about Madam C. J. Walker with Michael E. Parker, CEO and founder of VCS, Inc. and host of CEO TV. Here's the link: CEO TV Madam C. J. Walker Hope you'll share the link with others who want to learn more about Madam...
Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” Is Back: My 40 Second Hollywood Debut
Invitation to 2009 DC Screening of Chris Rock's "Good Hair"Chris Rock's comedy doc, "Good Hair"--and my 40 second Hollywood debut--are back on HBO for a summer run from July 12 through August 19. Check out the trailer and the schedule for HBO West, East and Latino on...
Woodlawn Cemetery–Burial Place of Madam Walker–Designated National Historic Landmark
June 30, 2011: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced that The Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx--where entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker and her Harlem Renaissance arts patron daughter, A'Lelia Walker, are buried--has been designated a National Historic...
Lyric Tenor Roland Hayes’s January 1924 Chicago Concert
I learned to read music on a Chickering baby grand piano that had belonged to my great-grandmother, A'Lelia Walker, but it really was my mother, A'Lelia Mae Perry Bundles, and my grandmother, Mae Walker Perry, who had musical talent. As the only legally adopted...
Happy Birthday, A’Lelia Walker! (June 6, 1885)
My great-grandmother and namesake, A’Lelia Walker (1885-1931), loved getting flowers on her birthday! Orchids. Dahlias. Gladiolas. Roses. She had everything else–houses, diamonds, furs, cars–plus great friends, a gregarious spirit and a love of life. Well, almost...
Watoto from the Nile’s “Letter to Lil Wayne” Makes My Day
When you write for a living, you never know where your words will land. You always hope your messages will make a difference, but there's no guarantee. Yesterday was one of those days that made it all worthwhile. I'd heard earlier this year about the smart young...
Berenice Abbott’s 1930 Photos of A’Lelia Walker
A'Lelia Walker--charismatic, statuesque and stylish--posed for many of the most noted Harlem Renaissance photographers and sculptors, including Richmond Barthe, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee, James Latimer Allen and R. E. Mercer.She also sat for Greenwich...
Stars of Black History Shine at 85th annual ASALH Luncheon
Black historians and black history lovers converged in Washington, DC on Saturday, February 26th for the 85th annual Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the organization founded by Carter G. Woodson--the father of black history--in 1915. ...
“Heritage of Resistance” Panel Features Descendants of Walker, Du Bois, Wells and Drew
I'm still feeling the glow of a great weekend in Chicago with old friends and new. The "Heritage of Resistance" symposium at the DuSable Museum where Michelle Duster, Charlene Drew Jarvis, Arthur McFarlane and I talked about our ancestors (Ida B. Wells, Dr. Charles...
Inside the Vaults at the National Archives
One of my favorite parts of writing a book is the research. You truly never know where a photograph, a newspaper clipping or a faded letter will lead you. When I started my research for On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker almost 40 years ago, I...
Serendipity: Family Photos
Walker Family Photos (A'Lelia Bundles's Walker Family Archives)Doing the research about the women in my family brings many incredibly serendipitous moments. Last fall out of the blue I received a call from a gentleman who had purchased these photos at an auction. My...
Flashback: Villa Lewaro, Madam Walker’s New York Estate
View Part One of the video: HGTV Villa Lewaro View all five parts. In celebration of the United Negro College Fund's 1998 Designer Showhouse at Villa Lewaro, Madam C. J. Walker's Irvington-on-Hudson, NY estate, HGTV produced this hour documentary. You can learn more...
“Let Your Motto Be Resistance” Symposium
Title: "Let Your Motto Be Resistance" Symposium Location: DuSable Museum 740 East 56th Place Chicago, IL 773-947-0600 Link out: Click here Description: A symposium featuring A'Lelia Bundles (Madam C. J. Walker and A'Lelia Walker family), Michelle Duster (Ida B....