National Center for Civil & Human Rights in Atlanta
2025-11-09 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | National Center for Civil and Human Rights, 100 Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd, Atlanta, GA, 30313, United States
A live conversation with author A’Lelia Bundles about her new book | Re-Opening Weekend
Celebrate the return of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights with Cup of Truth, featuring journalist and author A’Lelia Bundles in conversation about her new book Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance.
Bundles brings to life her great-grandmother A’Lelia Walker — daughter of Madam C. J. Walker and a dazzling force of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem” by Langston Hughes, Walker inherited her mother’s empire and transformed it into a cultural salon for legends like Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, and W. E. B. Du Bois.
This is more than a biography. It’s a story of joy as resistance, legacy as power, and one woman’s quest to define herself on her own terms.
Included with museum admission. Held in the Center café.
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Joy Goddess at Woodson Regional Library in Chicago
2025-11-13 17:00 - 19:30 | Vivian Harsh Collection at Woodson Regional Library, 9525 S. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL, United States
Click here to register

Greater Miami Links Book & Author Luncheon
2025-11-15 11:00 - 14:00 | JW Marriott Turnberry Isle Resort, 19999 W Country Club Drive, Aventura, FL, United States
Click here for more information

VIRTUAL Vivian Harsh Readers Circle
2025-11-15 14:00 - 16:00

City Men Cook ThanksLiving Celebration in Dallas
2025-11-23 16:00 - 18:00 | Hall of State, 3939 Grand Avenue, Dallas, TX, United States

Joy Goddess at Columbia University School of Professional Studies in New York
2025-12-02 18:00 - 20:00 | Columbia University Bollinger Forum, 605 West 125th Street, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Click here to register (Eventbrite)

Indiana Historical Society Holiday Author Fair
2025-12-06 12:00 - 16:00 | Indiana Historical Society, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, IN, United States

Joy Goddess at Hillwood Museum in Washington, DC
2026-02-03 18:30 - 19:30 | Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, 4155 Linnaean Street NW, Washington, DC, 20016, United States
This is the first program in Hillwood’s Great Homes and Gardens lecture series.
A’Lelia Bundles returns to Hillwood to share vintage photographs and stories from Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, the first major biography of her great-grandmother and namesake. Best known as the daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, A’Lelia Walker was a charismatic influencer and arts patron in her own right who traveled internationally and hosted some of the Jazz Age’s most memorable soirees at her Westchester mansion, Harlem townhouse and uptown pied-a-terre.
A’Lelia will sign copies of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance following the lecture.

VIRTUAL Everyday Yellow Book Talk
2026-02-18 18:00 - 19:00
Please join A’Lelia for a stimulating VIRTUAL conversation with coach Charisse Williams about Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance and the importance of joy and resilience in these chaotic times.

A'Lelia Interviews L. Michelle Smith at MLK Library in DC
2026-02-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 901 G Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20001, United States
A’Lelia interviews L. Michelle Smith about L. Michelle’s new book “Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church” at MLK Library in Washington, DC

From the MLK website:
Through rich storytelling, this keynote shares how powerful Black women (and men) in the Fortune 500, education, arts, and entertainment trace their earliest leadership lessons back to the church.
Did you know that humming a gospel tune before walking into a high-stakes meeting can rewire your brain to lead more effectively? The act triggers a release of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin—regulating emotions, lowering anxiety, and activating the reward center to halt fear from taking over your executive decision making..and not just any music can do this. It’s neuroscience. But for many Black professionals, it’s simply ritual—a practice rooted in the traditions of the Black Church.
We’ve practiced powerful, emotionally intelligent leadership for generations—without calling it that. Until now.
What the Audience Will Take Away
● A contemporary leadership framework rooted in both legacy and research
● A reintroduction to the practices that shaped them—and the science that validates them
● A call to lead with conviction, cultural intelligence, and heart—without apology

Montclair Public Library Book Talk with Khalil Muhammad
2026-02-21 16:00 - 18:00 | Montclair Public Library, 50 S. Fullerton Avenue, Montclair, NJ, 07402, United States
A’Lelia will be in conversation with historian and Princeton professor Khalil Muhammad at the Montclair Public Library
Register at https://bccls.libcal.com/event/15698895
From the MPL website
Open Book, Open Mind; A’Lelia Bundles, “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance”
Award-winning television producer and author A’Lelia Bundles will be talking with Princeton professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad about her new biography of A’Lelia Walker, her great grandmother, the hair care heiress and patroness of the Harlem Renaissance whom Langston Hughes called “the joy goddess of Harlem.” Bundles will also show a PowerPoint presentation of historic images and rare archival family photos.
Doors open at 3:30 p.m. The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and book sales and signing with Watchung Booksellers.

VIRTUAL High Point, NC Library Book Talk
2026-02-22 14:00 - 15:30 | High Point Public Library, High Point, NC, United States
Join A’Lelia for High Point Public Library’s “Taste of Harlem” discussion about Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance hosted by librarian Maxine Days and Sisters Connected.
Click here for the registration link

Here’s the registration link

Sarasota ASALH and Links Joy Goddess Book Talk
2026-03-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Westcoast Black Theatre, 1012 N. Orange Avenue, Sarasota, FL, 34236, United States
A’Lelia Bundles will chat with Renee Gilmore, host of Empowering Voices on ABC7 Sarasota at West Coast Black Theatre, at a Joy Goddess talk hosted by the Manasota Branch of ASALH and the Bradenton/Sarasota Chapter of The Links, Inc.
Here’s the registration link

From the website

Dive into the life of A’Lelia Walker, the Heiress of the Harlem Renaissnace.

A’Lelia Bundles will discuss her new book, “Joy Goddess,” and share the scintillating story of the pioneering glamour and cultural patronage of her great-grandmother, after whom she was named, the hair-care heiress and Harlem Renaissance socialite A’Lelia Walker.

International Women's Day at MLK Library in DC
2026-03-08 13:30 - 16:30 | Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 901 G Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20001, United States
A’Lelia will talk about the importance and urgent necessity of researching, writing about and preserving family legacy during these times of erasure and book banning.
From Unerased Black Women Speak
Authors, Activists, Artists Speak! Writing Our Story, Righting Our History Join Unerased | Black Women Speak to celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. We’ll honor architects of American memory, imagination, and change. At this pivotal moment, we convene authors, activists, artists, writers and readers to affirm Black women’s voices through Herstory—past and present.

Atlanta History Center "Joy Goddess" Talk
2026-03-16 19:00 - 20:30 | Atlanta History Center, 130 West Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta, GA, 30305, United States
Click this link to register

From the AHC website: Drawing on extensive research and personal correspondence, A’Lelia Bundles presents a nuanced biography of a woman navigating life as a wife, mother, businesswoman, and patron outside the shadow of her famous mother’s legacy.
With vivid detail, Joy Goddess brings to life A’Lelia’s radiant personality, fashion-forward influence, and role as one of the most important cultural icons of Harlem, offering a fresh and unforgettable portrait of the woman who embodied the spirit of a new Black cultural era.

Spelman Black Beauty STEMinist Summit
2026-03-21 10:00 - 17:00 | Spelman College, 350 Spelman Lane, Atlanta, GA, United States
A’Lelia will talk about Madam C. J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker at Spelman’s Black Beauty STEMinist Summit
Click here for detailed agenda of the day
From the Spelman website: The Black Beauty STEMinist is a platform for celebrating Black women in the cosmetics and personal care industry by creating a space to connect, learn, and thrive. We provide opportunities to engage with like-minded individuals, gain insights from industry experts, and grow within a supportive, empowering community.

Bethune House in Washington, DC
2026-03-28 13:00 - 14:30 | Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, 1318 Vermont Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, United States
In celebration of Women’s History Month, join us as journalist and author A’Lelia Bundles discusses her latest book—Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. During the 1920s, A’Lelia Walker (daughter of Madam C.J. Walker) was an internationally famous heiress whose glamorous soirees were so memorable that poet Langston Hughes dubbed her “the joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s.” Long overshadowed by her mother’s legacy, A’Lelia Walker’s radiant personality, impresario instincts and international travels are brought to life through her voluminous personal correspondence and a trove of archival research. Books will be available for purchase in the site bookstore.
Reservations are required. Email BethuneNHS@nps.gov.
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Family Ties Panel at Massachusetts Historical Society (IN PERSON & VIRTUAL)
2026-04-28 17:00 - 18:15 | Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 02215, United States
A’Lelia will join biographers Jeffrey Boutwell and Hester Kaplan — who also have written about family members — on a panel moderated by Pulitzer Prize winner Megan Marshall.
The event is hybrid and free of charge. An in-person reception will begin at 4:15 PM.
Click here to register
From the MHS website: This panel discussion brings together three American subjects from different eras and professions: George Boutwell, 19th century Massachusetts politician; A’Lelia Walker, Progressive Era business woman and arts patron; Justin Kaplan, prize-winning 20th century biographer of Twain and Whitman. What do their biographies have in common? Boutwell: Radical Republican and Champion of Democracy was written by a distant cousin; Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance by a great-granddaughter; and Twice Born: Finding My Father in the Margins of Biography by a daughter. How does the “necessary entwinement”—Hester Kaplan’s phrase for the binding of biographer to subject—alter, how does it feel, when the subject is a family member? Learn about three remarkable, impactful lives, and the writing lives of their biographer relatives.

Washington Writers Conference in Bethesda, MD
2026-05-02 15:00 - 16:00 | Bethesda North Marriott Hotel, 5701 Marinelli Road, Rockville, DC, United States
Panel: “Your Story, Your Way”
You have a tale to tell, your own or one that’s been in your family for years, but how should you tell it? In this panel, moderator Tre Johnson (Black Genius) talks to A’Lelia Bundles (Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance), Jeannie Vanasco (The Glass Eye), and Jennifer Bort Yacovissi (Up the Hill to Home) about finding the right genre for your unique project.
Don’t miss your chance to hear from these and other pros during the 2026 Washington Writers Conference on May 1-2 in Rockville, MD. Click here to REGISTER NOW!

Joy Goddess at Kansas City Public Library (In Person & on YouTube)
2026-05-21 17:30 - 19:30 | Kansas City Public Library, 14 W. 10th Street, Kansas City, MO, United States
Join the Kansas City Public Library for an inspiring evening celebrating the life and legacy of A’Lelia Walker, the “Joy Goddess of Harlem’s 1920s.”
Author A’Lelia Bundles will share insights from her latest biography, exploring the lasting influence of the Walker family from St. Louis to the Harlem Renaissance and their impact on the arts, civil rights, and women’s suffrage.
Reception: 5:30 p.m.
Program: 6:00 p.m.
Book signing to follow
Free validated parking available
Attend in person or watch live at youtube.com/kclibrary.
This program is cosponsored by the Greater Kansas City Chapters of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the Greater Kansas City Black History Study Group (ASALH), and E La Mars Cosmetology and Barber College, with funding support from the Health Forward Foundation.

Biographers International Conference in New York
2026-05-29 10:00 - 11:30 | Leon Levy Center for Biography at CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, United States
PANEL: In the Right Hands: Biographers as Collectors
Biographers can support their research by collecting important related material often overlooked on the market or in storerooms and unavailable in any repository or online. This panel will explore what authors have purchased, inherited, or been given, whether books, manuscripts, periodicals, ephemera, artworks, textiles, or objects, produced or owned by or pertaining to the biography subjects. The panelists will illustrate and illuminate the value of what they acquired, sometimes in the most unexpected places and at the last minute, and will discuss how items shaped their biography narratives and shed light on pivotal moments in their subjects’ lives and careers. The session will also cover how those materials can be transferred to institutional collections for safekeeping.
Moderator
A’Lelia Bundles is the author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, a biography of her great-grandmother, and On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, a New York Times Notable Book about her entrepreneurial great-great-grandmother. Her books have benefited from the voluminous Walker Company documents that her family donated to the Indiana Historical Society in the early 1980s. To organize and preserve another trove of materials inherited from her grandparents, she founded the Madam Walker Family Archives, the largest private collection of Walker ephemera, photographs, and correspondence. She serves on several nonprofit boards and was a producer and executive during her 30-year career in network television news.
Panelists
Eve M. Kahn, an independent scholar and regular New York Times contributor, has written two biographies that have resulted in boxfuls of important primary source material tucked away in her home. She has thousands of pages of circa-1900 correspondence that inspired her 2019 book about the forgotten artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857-1907), as well as rare periodicals, inscribed books, photos, ephemera, and even restaurant cutlery related her 2025 book about the writer, publisher and social justice activist Zoe Anderson Norris (1860-1914).
Richard Kopley, Distinguished Professor emeritus of English at Penn State DuBois, is the author of Edgar Allan Poe: A Life (University of Virginia Press, 2025). The book is informed by Kopley’s extraordinary archive of letters about Poe by Flora Lapham Mack, the stepdaughter of Poe’s best friend, John H. Mackenzie. Kopley is also the author of The Threads of “The Scarlet Letter”: A Study of Hawthorne’s Transformative Art (University of Delaware Press, 2003), Edgar Allan Poe and the Dupin Mysteries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), and The Formal Center in Literature: Explorations from Poe to the Present (Camden House, 2018). Former president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society and the Poe Studies Association, he is the first recipient of the PSA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Kopley served as a Fulbright Specialist and a Virginia Humanities Fellow, and he recently became a member of the American Antiquarian Society.
Jared Stearns is the author of Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers (Headpress, 2024). He has built the largest known collection of Chambers memorabilia, spanning personal papers, photographs, contracts, film, periodicals, ephemera, and even clothing. He has written about Chambers for publications such as Cineaste, The Dark Side, and The San Franciscan. His work has also appeared in The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. He is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. He’s working on his next biography.

Wednesday Morning Group in Bethesda
2026-06-17 09:30 - 11:00 | Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, Bethesda, MD, United States
A’Lelia Bundles returns to WMG to discuss her biography of her charismatic great-grandmother,
Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. A‘Lelia Walker, best known as the
only daughter of hair care entrepreneur, Madam C. J. Walker (whom Bundles memorialized
earlier in On Her Own Ground), was a businesswoman and convener in her own right, whose
glamorous soirees were so memorable that poet Langston Hughes dubbed her “the joy goddess
of Harlem’s 1920s.” This illustrated presentation features archival family photographs and stories of the Dark Tower cultural salon where celebrities such as Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson and Alberta Hunter gathered.
Members only event

Joy Goddess August and September 2026 Events
2026-08-01

Peoria Riverfront Museum
2026-08-08 - 2026-08-09 | Peoria Riverfront Museum, 222 SW Water St, Peoria, IL, United States
As part of the Joyful Resistance exhibition, A’Lelia will talk about Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance and the items from her Madam Walker Family Archives that are on display in the exhibition at a Saturday Members Only session and on Sunday in a public talk.

Martha's Vineyard Black Book Festival
2026-08-15 12:00 - 17:00 | Island Conference Center, 30 Island Inn Road, Oak Bluffs, MA, United States
A’Lelia will talk about Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance at the Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival.

Edgartown Books 8/16/2026
2026-08-16 11:00 - 13:00 | Edgartown Books, 44 Main Street, Edgartown, MA, United States
A’Lelia will sign copies of Joy Goddess and On Her Own Ground at Edgartown Books.

Mississippi Book Festival 9/26/2026
2026-09-26 09:00 - 17:00 | Mississippi State Capitol Complex, 400 High Street, Jackson, MS, 39201, United States
A’Lelia speaks her books — Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance and On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker — at the Mississippi Book Festival on Saturday, September 26
Mississippi Book Festival
