Lyric Tenor Roland Hayes’s January 1924 Chicago Concert

Roland Hayes 1924 Chicago Concert (Madam Walker Family Archives of A'Lelia Bundles/www.aleliabundles.com)

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 daughter of A’Lelia Walker and granddaughter of entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, Mae had been afforded many privileges, including harp lessons and enrollment at Spelman College.

Several years ago, I discovered this  program from lyric tenor Roland Hayes’s January 15, 1924 program at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall among Mae’s personal belongings. It now is part of  my Madam Walker/A’Lelia Walker Family Archives. At the time of the concert, Mae recently had moved to Chicago. Like others in the city’s black community, she had looked forward to hearing Hayes sing selections–including Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” black British composer (more…)

Cheryl Brown Henderson Champions Her Family’s Brown v. Board Legacy

A'Lelia Bundles and Cheryl Brown Henderson at the Willard Hotel 2-22-2011

My Black History Month has been brimming with living legends!

This afternoon I had the good fortune to be invited to a luncheon hosted by my homegirl Janet Langhart Cohen in honor of Cheryl Brown Henderson, whose father, Reverend Oliver Brown, and sister Linda Brown, were the named plaintiffs in the landmark  Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.  (more…)

On Her Own Ground Book Tour

 

Click here for C-Span Video  On Her Own Ground Book Tour-Detroit 2001

I’m having a great time going through C-Span Book TV’s archives. Hard to believe my book, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker, is a decade old. Here’s the presentation at the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit that launched the book tour. The audience was wonderfully warm and that evening my college classmate, Sandra Jenkins, hosted a gathering at her home with other college friends including Phyllis James, Norma Cassell and Linda Hotchkiss.

Baltimore-The Winner’s Summit

Title: Baltimore-The Winner’s Summit
Location: Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards 110 S. Eutaw, Baltimore, MD
Link out: Click here
Description: Entrepreneur Deborah Hardnett presents three day conference featuring A’Lelia Bundles, Linda Clemons, Sheila Brooks, Glinda Bridgforth, LaFern Batie and other successful women entrepreneurs and motivational speakers.
Start Time: 08:00
Date: 2011-03-19
End Time: 15:00