Rags-to-riches entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, built one of the most successful African American hair care businesses in American history.
But it was only after A’Lelia broke free of her mother’s singular vision that she found her calling in 1920s Harlem. That search for independence and purpose is at the center of A’Lelia Bundles’ new book, “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance.”
Bundles is a veteran award-winning journalist who’s written several books, and has a special connection with her subject: A’Lelia Walker was her great-grandmother. Bundles said the relationship between Madam C.J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker was described by some as “fire and ice.”
“They loved each other dearly, and they sometimes fought fiercely,” Bundles said on GBH‘s Under the Radar. “I suppose one might call it a co-dependent relationship the way that we would describe things now. They were entangled, because they had been through so much hardship in their early lives.
“And because Madam was a person who had created the business, that first-generation entrepreneur, that founder, that creator — she had that drive, that intensity, that workaholic attitude that she sometimes imposed on her daughter. And her daughter was a very different person. She wanted to be her own person, and yet she enjoyed the trappings of wealth and she wanted to please her mother.”
A’Lelia Walker took her first step toward independence when she moved from Pittsburgh, where her mother’s company was founded, to Harlem in the 1920s. There, she began to host parties that allowed for people of different backgrounds, areas of expertise, races and ethnicities who may not otherwise cross paths to socialize and connect.
“She brought people together,” Bundles said. “She knew that she had both this gift but also the means to bring these people together. So, she had lots of friends who were in the theater, lots of friends who were musicians — and she also had lots of friends who loved the theater. She had people who were friends of hers who could help to support some of those artists, so she wanted to create a space.
“Out of that comfort with great food and Prohibition-era adult beverages and the party’s swag, she brought people together in a comfortable way so they could socialize, but there might also be some business that would be conducted,” she continued.
Bundles said that, in her work, she aims to tell the true stories of these important African American women whose contributions to history are often misconstrued or apocryphal. She said she hopes readers come away with a more complete — and correct — understanding of who A’Lelia Walker was.
“I want [readers] to see A’Lelia Walker as a person with many dimensions, as a person who made a difference during the Harlem Renaissance, because of her ability to bring people together,” Bundles said. “She had an outsized personality, but also she struggled in trying to find her identity under the shadow of a larger-than-life iconic figure.
“Powerful, famous people have children who are struggling to carve their own way in the world. And some of them manage to do it better than others. And I think A’Lelia Walker made a credible stab at finding her own way and at making a difference for other people,” she said.
A’Lelia Bundles’ “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” is the May selection for Bookmarked: the Under the Radar book club. It is available for pre-order now and comes out on June 10.
Guest:
- A’Lelia Bundles, award-winning journalist and author of several books. Her latest is “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance.”
