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 sisters of Watoto from the Nile, who had challenged Lil Wayne to clean up his misogynistic act, but with so much Internet overload I’d never gotten around to viewing it. Imagine my surprise when (more…)
She also sat for Greenwich Village resident, Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), one of the premiere photographers of the 20th century and a protegee of Man Ray. Perhaps best known for her dramatic black-and-white photographs of New York City architecture during the 1930s, Abbott also was an accomplished portrait photographer.
Sylvia Beach, the American owner of Paris’s Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, once said, “To be ‘done’ by Man Ray or Berenice Abbott meant you rated as somebody.” (more…)
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.
Lonnie Bunch, A'LeliaBundles, Tuliza Fleming and John Fleming at the ASALH luncheon in DC (2-26-2011)
The luncheon always brings out the stars of black history!
We saw Lonnie Bunch (founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture), Tuliza Fleming (NMAAHC curator Apollo exhibit) , John Fleming (former ASALH president/executive producer America I AM), (more…)
Arthur McFarlane, Charlene Drew Jarvis, Zada Johnson, A'Lelia Bundles and Michelle Duster at the DuSable Museum in Chicago
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 Drew, W.E.B. Du Bois and Madam C. J. Walker) was amazing on so many levels.
I’m marvelling at the fewer than six degrees of separation among my fellow panelists. Madam Walker knew and interacted with Du Bois and Wells, who were founders of the NAACP. Dr. Charles Drew was a star doctoral student at Columbia University during the 1920s (after Walker’s death) and was well-known to the older generation like Wells and Du Bois.
Many thanks to Kay McCrimon, the DuSable’s program manager, for bringing us all together.
Flier for DuSable Descendants Panel
We are ready to take this show on the road to universities, corporations and conferences!
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 knew very little about Madam Walker’s childhood as Sarah Breedlove or (more…)
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 best guess is that they had been left behind in a dresser that once had belonged to my grandmother, Mae Walker Perry. I actually already had all of the photos except one, but (more…)
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