A'Lelia Bundles

A'Lelia Bundles in conversation with Tina Knowles - Indiana Conference for Women
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | JW Marriott Indianapolis, 10 S. West Street, Indianapolis, IN, United States
A’Lelia will be in conversation with Tina Knowles about her book Matriarch: A Memoir at the ICFW lunchtime keynote program.

GANYC Guides Association of NYC
2025-10-21 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | IN
A’Lelia will conduct a virtual tour of A’Lelia Walker’s favorite Harlem addresses for the Guides Association of NYC

University Club of DC Joy Goddess Book Talk
2025-10-14 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | University Club of Washington, DC, 1135 16th Street NW, Washington, DC, United States
A’Lelia will join members of the University Club of Washington, DC for a talk about her book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance.

Capital City Links Tea - Washington, DC
2025-10-11 11:00 - 14:00 UTC | Omni Shoreham Hotel, 2400 Calvert Street NW, Washington, DC, United States

Harvard Club of Washington, DC - A'Lelia Bundles & Dolen Perkins-Valdez in Conversation
2025-10-07 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Hogan Lovells, 555 13th Street NW, Washington, DC, 20004, United States
REGISTER HERE https://bit.ly/4pMRh4n

Six Bridges Book Festival - Little Rock, Arkansas
2025-10-04 10:00 - 11:00 UTC | Ron Robinson Theater at Central Arkansas Library System, 100 River Market Avenue, Little Rock, AR, 72201, United States
Click here to listen to A’Lelia’s conversation with Juanita Tolliver and Jessica McDaniels.
PRESENTERS: A’Lelia Bundles & Juanita Tolliver
BOOKS: Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance & A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics

Moderator: Jessica McDaniels
About the authors:
A’Lelia Bundles is the author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, the first major biography of her great-grandmother, and of 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. Bundles is a former ABC News executive, an Emmy-winning NBC News producer, founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives, and a member of several nonprofit boards including Harvard’s Schlesinger Library.
Juanita Tolliver is an MSNBC political analyst, an opinion contributor for TheGrio, and a contributor for SiriusXM Progress. Previously, she served as the director of campaigns at the Center for American Progress. She is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
About the books:
Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance is a vibrant, nuanced, deeply researched biography of a woman whose glamorous soirees helped define uptown New York’s cultural and social scene during the 1920s. Best known as the only child of hair care entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, she was an internationally famous heiress and arts patron in her own right, who entertained the era’s most famous artists, writers, musicians and actors at her Dark Tower salon.
A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics spotlights the legendary party hosted by legendary actress and singer Diahann Carroll for New York Representative Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign (the first such campaign for a Black woman), which changed the playing field for Black women in politics. Zooming in on one party attendee per chapter, A More Perfect Party brings this whimsical event out of the margins of history to demonstrate that there is an opportunity for all of us to fight for a better nation and return power to the people.
Sponsored by ESSE Purse Museum & Store with additional support from the CALS Distinguished Lecture Fund in honor of Betsey Wright

AGE GROUP: | Teens ages 12-19 | Adults |

A Dark Tower Harlem Renaissance Afternoon with The Tenth Salon - Atlanta
2025-09-28 13:00 - 15:00 UTC | Hammonds House Museum, 503 Peeples Street SW, Atlanta, 30310
The Tenth Anniversary Soirée + Book Talk with Author A’Lelia Bundles & Dr. Karida Brown on Joy Goddess
In honor of the Tenth’s first anniversary, they are hosting a special evening with A’Lelia Bundles, who’ll be in conversation with Karida Brown about her stunning new biography Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. Bundles brings her great-grandmother—and Harlem’s legendary “Joy Goddess”—to life with grace, revealing the salons, soirées, and creative salons that helped define a cultural era.
Copies of Joy Goddess will be available for purchase, and guests will have the opportunity to get it personally signed.
This event is open to members + their guest.

NGAAP/The Soul of Philanthropy 10th Anniversary - Charlotte, NC
2025-09-25 17:30 - 20:30 UTC | Wray Ward, 2317 Thrift Road, Charlotte, North Carolina, 28208, United States
God Given: The HeART & Soul of Black Philanthropy
“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.” — Ossie Davis, Actor, Playwright, and Civil Rights Advocate
A look at Black creativity and cultural expression, specifically how Black artists and art patrons—past, present and future—give back, using their gifts and resources to foster shared visions, resiliency, and novel solutions in response to community and global issues.
In the spirit of Sankofa, this program, presented in conjunction with The Soul of Philanthropy • CLT Homecoming exhibition, will: Look back with A’Lelia Bundles, author of the newly released book Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance; Examine contemporary times over the past two decades with community-rooted artists from the God City Collective; and Look forward by building upon lessons from the past to shape a future that brings greater visibility, investments and influence for social impact.
• A complimentry copy of Joy Goddess will be provided to attendees.
• Preceding the program will be a social reception with food and beverages.
• Following the program will be a book signing with A’Lelia Bundles and participating artists.

VIRTUAL Humanities Arkansas
2025-09-23 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | IN
A’Lelia speaks with Jillian Hartley about Madam C. J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker.

Dark Tower Day Party - March On! Fest in Washington, DC
2025-09-21 13:00 - 15:00 UTC | The Auto Shop, 416 Morse Street NE, Washington, WA, 20012, United States
Step into the glittering world of the Harlem Renaissance, where art, politics, and pleasure converged in a swirl of brilliance and defiance. Inspired by the legendary gatherings at A’Lelia Walker’s Dark Tower salon—the top floor of her Harlem townhouse on 136th Street—this closing celebration channels the glamour, intellect, and audacity of an era that redefined Black creativity. The Dark Tower was the gathering space for the luminaries of the day—artists, writers, musicians, poets, their patrons, and friends from Walker’s travels abroad.
Poetry drifts through the crowd, an aerialist twists gracefully overhead, and the rhythms shift through an intellectual and emotional journey on the history of Black music—from the swing of the 1920s to the grooves of funk, the pulse of hip hop, and the global beat of Afro Beats. A spirited conversation between A’Lelia Bundles, granddaughter of the original “Joy Goddess,” and March On! Artistic Director Isisara Bey will bring to life the stories, style, and cultural impact of Walker’s famed salon, connecting its legacy to the artistry and activism of today.
Thought-provoking dialogue intertwines with artistry, as reflections on legacy mingle seamlessly with the thrill of the moment. Laughter mingles with the clink of glasses, rich flavors tempt your palate, and a table of carefully curated books invites you to take a piece of the experience home.
More than a party, it’s a living tribute to a cultural awakening—an afternoon to be inspired, to connect, and to carry the spark forward.
Special Guests:
A’Lelia Bundles, author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, the vibrant biography of her great-grandmother and daughter of Madam C.J. Walker.
Dr. Msia Kibona Clark, Associate Professor of African Studies, College of Arts & Sciences, Howard University
Chi Akano, aerialist
Soundscape by Vessel Studios
DJ R WE ON THE AIR?!
Isisara Bey, Artistic Director, March On!
Howard University Alumni Actors
Bookstore Activation by Mahogany Books
Doors open: 12:45pm
Event starts: 1:00pm
AutoShop
416 Morse St NE, Washington, DC, 20002
September 21, 2025, 1:00 – 3:00 PM EDT

Joy Goddess at the National Archives - Washington, DC (video link included)
2025-09-15 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | National Archives, 701 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408, United States
To watch the video of the program click here
Join author, journalist, and historian A’Lelia Bundles as she discusses her latest book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, with PBS NewsHour co-anchor Geoff Bennett.
Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s” by poet Langston Hughes, A’Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire haircare entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. Bundles, Walker’s great-granddaughter and namesake, explores her business savvy and love for the arts in a new biography, leveraging extensive archival research to reveal Walker as a central changemaker in the Harlem Renaissance movement.
Following the program, guests are invited to join us for champagne, dessert, and a book signing with A’Lelia Bundles from 8:00 p.m. – 8:45 p.m. EDT.
This program is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the Rightfully Hers Fund.

IN-PERSON & VIRTUAL Joy Goddess at CUNY Graduate Center in NY 9/9
2025-09-09 20:00 UTC | Graduate Center at CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
This event is virtual on YouTube and in-person at the Segal Theatre at CUNY’s Graduate Center! So you have options! I hope you’ll join award-winning biographer Eric K. Washington and me for a deep dive into the people, places and events of the Harlem Renaissance as we talk about my new book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. It’s always fun to talk with Eric because my research and his research for his book, Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal have so many intersections and common themes.
Register at https://bit.ly/4gjgf7j
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VIRTUAL The Dark Tower Book Club IG Live on 9/5
2025-09-05 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Dark Tower Book Club Tower Talks
Please join me and Monifa Coffee, the host of the newly formed Dark Tower Bookclub, inspired by A’Lelia Walker’s Dark Tower cultural salon. I look forward to talking about how the Dark Tower came to be, the impact it had on the social and cultural scene of the Harlem Renaissance and why those gatherings have lessons for us today. Tune in at 7 p.m. ET on IG Live @thedarktowerbookclub

Dark Tower Book Club

Joy Goddess at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore (video link included)
2025-09-04 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD, 2102, United States
To watch my conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning columnist E. R. Shipp, click here.
I’m looking forward to my conversation at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in BALTIMORE on 9/4 at 7:00 p.m. ET with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and Morgan State multimedia journalism professor E. R. Shipp. While she was a New York Times reporter, she wrote about and lived in Harlem, so she knows the territory I cover in Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. Register for the in-person and virtual event at http://bit.ly/45KOlgM

Preservation League of New York State Book Club (video link included)
2025-09-03 16:00 - 17:00 UTC | Virtual
To watch A’Lelia’s virtual talk with PLNYS Book Club, click here.
Please join me for an illustrated virtual talk about Madam C. J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker’s lives with vintage photos from my Madam Walker Family Archives. I’ll talk about architecture and preservation with a focus on Madam Walker’s Villa Lewaro in Irvington, New York and A’Lelia Walker’s Harlem townhouse on 136th Street and her pied-a-terre on Edgecombe Avenue. I look forward to answering your questions about On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker and my new book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. Register at https://bit.ly/4n4jukV
This author talk is presented as part of the Preservation League of NYS’s Preservation Book Club sponsored by the Peggy N. & Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust.
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National Book Club Conference (Atlanta)
2025-08-01 - 2025-08-03 | Westin Buckhead, 3391 Peachtree Road, NE, Atlanta, GA, 30326, United States
A’Lelia will be a featured author at the annual National Book Club Conference at Atlanta.

Library of Congress Talk with Glory Edim and Marita Golden (video link included)
2025-07-17 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street SE, Washington, DC, United States
To watch A’Lelia’s conversation with authors Glory Edim and Marita Golden, click here.
An evening celebrating Black women writers and literary heroes with A’Lelia Bundles (“Joy Goddess”), whose great-grandmother A’Lelia Walker was crucial to the Harlem Renaissance, and Glory Edim, whose new book is “Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me.” Marita Golden, novelist and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, moderated.

Joy Goddess in Indianapolis (Madam Walker Legacy Center)
2025-06-22 15:30 - 19:00 UTC | Madam Walker Legacy Center, 617 Indiana Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, United States
A’Lelia will be in conversation with CICF Women’s Fund president Tamara Winfrey-Harris at the Madam Walker Legacy Center
3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. VIP Reception in the Walker Ballroom
5 p.m. – 7 p.m. Book Talk in the Walker Theatre
Register at https://madamwalkerlegacycenter.com/events/legacy-reception-talkback-an-afternoon-with-alelia-bundles/

Joy Goddess in New York (Harvard Club of New York)
2025-06-17 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Harvard Club of New York, 27 West 44th Street, New York, NY, 10036, United States
A’Lelia will be in conversation with Kenneth Ebie at the Harvard Club of New York.
Register at https://www.hcny.com/event/joy-goddess-alelia-walker-and-the-harlem-renaissance/

Joy Goddess in Cambridge (Harvard Book Store)
2025-06-13 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 01238, United States
A’Lelia looks forward to being in conversation with her good friend and former ABC News colleague Callie Crossley, host of WGBH radio’s “Under the Radar.”

Joy Goddess in Phildelphia (Barnes & Noble)
2025-06-12 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Barnes & Noble Philadelphia, 1708 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States
A’Lelia will talk about Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance in conversation with Rutgers Professor Tiffany Gill at the Philadelphia Barnes & Noble.
The event is free but registration is recommended

Joy Goddess in Washington, DC at MLK Library (video link included)
2025-06-11 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 901 G Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20001, United States
To watch A’Lelia’s conversation with author Tracy Chiles McGhee, click here.
A’Lelia discussed her new book Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance at 901 G Street, NW at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library.
Register at Martin Luther King Library website and at Politics & Prose website

Joy Goddess Launch at the Schomburg Center (video link included)
2025-06-09 18:00 - 20:30 UTC | Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY, 10037, United States
To watch A’Lelia’s conversation with Dr. Deborah Willis, click here.
A’Lelia launches the publication of her new book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, in a conversation with her dear friend Deborah Willis They first met during the 1980s when A’Lelia was doing research about the Walker women and Deborah was on the staff of Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the storied institution now celebrating the centennial of its founding. It is fitting that this launch happens at the Schomburg, which is located at the corner of Madam C. J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker Place and Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard and that it is only steps away from the original site of A’Lelia Walker’s Harlem townhouse at 108-110 West 136th Street (now the home of the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library.)
Register at https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2025/06/09/joy-goddess-book-launch-and-conversation

Biographer's International Conference (BIO Members Presentations)
2025-06-05 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC, 20045, United States
A’Lelia will join other BIO members as they read excerpts from their most recent biographies. She’ll select a section from Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, which will be published on June 10. Register for the conference at https://biographersinternational.org/conference/2025-bio-conference/#tab1

BIO Virtual Roundtable: Writing Women's Lives
2025-05-29 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Virtual
A’Lelia will moderated a virtual roundtable discussion on biographies about women as part of BIO’s annual conference. Space is limited so register now at https://biographersinternational.org/conference/2025-bio-conference/#program

World Bride Magazine Legacy Ball of Harlem
2025-05-05 18:00 - 23:00 UTC | Renaissance Hotel New York, 233 W 125th St, New York, NY, 10027, United States
A’Lelia joins World Bride Magazine founder Myrdith Leon-McCormack at the Renaissance New York Hotel for a celebration of the Harlem Renaissance and the neighborhood’s cultural impact. Click here for tickets.

Art and Beauty in the Black American Experience: A Panel Inspired by Artist Amy Sherald
2025-04-25 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | The Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, 10014, United States
A’Lelia will join a distinguished panel of beauty innovators and influencers including Camille Rose founder Janell Stephens, Harlem Candle and Perfume Company founder Teri Johnson, Danessa Myricks Beauty founder and Robyn Atwater of Curldaze to reflect on artist Amy Sherald’s Whitney Museum exhibition, “American Sublime.”

WGBH "Under the Radar with Callie Crossley"
2025-04-05 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | IN
To hear A’Lelia’s interview with Under the Radar host Callie Crossley click here.

Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography (BIO Conference)
2025-03-22 09:00 - 10:00 UTC | Troy University, 231 Montgomery St, Montgomery, AL, 36104, United States
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.

BIO Black Biography Conference (Montgomery, AL)
2025-03-22 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Chicago) | Troy University, 231 Montgomery St, Montgomery, AL, 36104, United States
A’Lelia will deliver the keynote speech at the Telling Stories of Black Lives Through Biographies symposium hosted by Troy University and the Biographers International Organization in Montgomery, Alabama.
