Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography (BIO Conference)

In her keynote address — “Because the Ancestors Insist: Why I Write Biography” — A’Lelia discusses her research and writing about Madam C. J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker, the long tradition of memoir and autobiography writing by Black authors, and how the current efforts to erase and sanitize Black history mirror late 19th and early 20th century efforts by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and some white historians to promote white supremacy in school curriculum and public monuments.