S26E11: How Black Women Build Empires: A Conversation with Madam C.J. Walker’s Great-Great-Granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On this week's episode of Cultivating her Space.

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Now, let's get into this week's episode of Cultivating her Space.

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(02:01):
We have a very special conversation for you today, so
we're just going to jump right on in to the
bio and then get into this conversation. Alilia Bundles is
an Emmy winning journalist, author, and historian, best known for
her biographies of her trail blazing ancestors, Madame C. J.
Walker and Aliliah Walker. She is the great great granddaughter

(02:22):
of Madame Walker, America's first self made female millionaire, and
the great granddaughter of Harlem Renaissance icon Aliliah Walker. A
graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School
of Journalism. Bundles is the founder of the Madame Walker
Family Archives and the author of On her Own Ground,

(02:44):
adapted into Netflix's Self Made, and of course, the newly
released Joy Goddess, Aliliah Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. Through
her work, Alilia Bundles preserves and elevates the legacy of
black women's excellence, entrepreneurship, and cultural impact. As a speaker
in MC, she has appeared at universities, corporations, and book festivals,

(03:07):
as well as on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, NPR, PBS,
and BBC. She has served as an advisor for numerous documentaries,
museum exhibits, biographies, scholarly papers, and history texts. Now, as
you can imagine, there is so much more that we
could say about Alia Bundles and her incredible resume, and

(03:29):
guess what it could easily feel an entire episode of
its own. Okay, so we're just gonna welcome her to
the show. Welcome to the show, Alia Bundles. We're so
happy to have you here.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
So delighted to be with you this evening.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Well, we are ready to jump into this conversation. And
so our quote of the day is going to sound
familiar to you because these are your words from your book,
and it speaks it's about your great grandmother. It is

(04:02):
time she assumes her place, with all her complexity and
dimensions among the pantheon of Harlem Renaissance icons. I'm going
to read that quote again for the folks in the
back who might not have caught it. It is time
she assumes her place, with all her complexity and dimensions

(04:25):
among the pantheon of Harlem Renaissance icons. MS. Bundles. When
you hear your words spoken back to you, tell us
what comes up for you, because I have my own
ideas of this, But what comes up for you when
you hear your.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Words, Well, you know that particular sentence. You know, every sentence,
as you know, in a book, is intentional. And after
you write and write the reugh drafts, and then the
rewrite and the editing and the good help from your editors,
and then you find a have the words that are
there on the page and the final book and that sentence.

(05:05):
I mean, it's so interesting to me that you chose
that sentence because it is my quest for almost twenty
years of working on this book since my other book
on her Own Ground came out. I knew Alilia Walker
needed her own story, and I knew how misunderstood and
sometimes misrepresented she had been. And so this is my

(05:28):
I don't know love letter to her and love letter
to people who want to know about the Harlem Renaissance.
So yes, that sentence really does embody my intention.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Oh I am just oh, I'm so excited about this conversation. Okay,
go ahead, Terry, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
No, I'm with you, all with you. I guess maybe
there's so many different directions we can go and when
it comes to this conversation, so I'm wondering, let's maybe
start with your origin story. How did you become the
incredible Alilia Bundles we see today, and then we'll circle
back around and cross off anything we didn't cover.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
You know, when you start with the origin story, I mean,
my parents were amazing and really encouraged me, and I
grew up in a black village in a sense of
a black suburb of Indianapolis. Both most of the fathers
in the neighborhood had been veterans of World War Two
and the Korean War. Most of the mothers worked, many

(06:26):
were school teachers, and our neighborhood included you know, doctors, lawyers, architects,
business people, plumbers, carpenters, a wide range of people. But
we were a small black neighborhood surrounded by a white
suburban neighborhood. The schools that I went to were always
predominantly white, but that very strong aspirations with the parents

(06:50):
that we were to do, you know, be good students.
I had that village that really nurtured me, and so
that when I went to school and I was a
good student, I also had teachers who, you know, who
pushed me, who encouraged me. But I always came back
to that village of high aspirations and love.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Then can we also talk a little bit about your career,
just to give people. I know I talked about a
little bit in the bio, but I know in one
of your interviews you mentioned like this wasn't necessarily your
life's work. You had your own career and other things.
Can you talk a little bit about that, and then
we'll dive into other questions.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
So one of the things that as a little girl,
I really got the writing bug got me. I wrote
a short story when I was eight years old and
one of my mother's friends, who was a school teacher
who was working on her master's paper and was doing
IQ tests with kids in the neighborhood, liked the story
that I wrote and she sent it to a children's magazine. So,

(07:46):
you know, at eight years old, I was published and
that was that was a big deal before the Internet,
when your words this didn't get out there. So I
just really embraced this idea of being a writer. I
could not carry a tune, so I was not going
to be the lead and the school play. But I
love to write, and that led to working for the
school newspaper and you know, and then to my career

(08:09):
in network television news. And I was a producer with
NBC News and ABC News about half and half with
both places over thirty years and really enjoyed it. It
was between nineteen seventy six and two thousand and six
when news was news. That's really different now though I'm

(08:30):
still a news junkie. I'm still I still pay a
lot of attention to journalism and read, you know, have
way too many subseac subscriptions and read a lot of
things to stay informed. But yes, it really started because
I loved to write, and in junior high school was
had a school newspaper advisor who had really high expectations.

(08:51):
So our junior high school newspaper, which I edited in
ninth grade, won national award. So I was you know,
I really thought I was a journalist from a or
a young age.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Okay, yeah, so many more questions. Okay, We're going to
try and stay focused here. So but so what I
want to do is kind of circle back. And you know,
acknowledge that you come from a storied and history making
lineage and that often truly comes with a lot of

(09:26):
pressure and certain expectations.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Right, Like you.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Veered into journalism. Your lineage is in a different direction, right,
And so how have you navigated or did you even
experience certain expectations and pressure based on your your lineage?

Speaker 2 (09:55):
You know, my mother was so wise, I really think
for this. My mother went to went to Howard University,
graduated in nineteen forty nine, and everybody knew she was
Madam Walker's great granddaughter, and she majored in business and
chemistry because she knew that she was going to work

(10:16):
for the family business, which she did, and which she
did beautifully. But she wanted me to be able to
chart my own path. My father had gone to Indiana
University and majored in journalism in the nineteen forties after
he had come back from the war. But as even
though he was we think the first, you know, one

(10:37):
of the first black graduates in journalism at Indiana University,
when he graduated, he could not get a job on
the editorial side of the newspapers in Indianapolis and instead
managed the paper delivery boys. And then he charted a
path into business and also worked in haircare. My mother
was vice president of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing

(10:59):
Company when I was growing up. But that was what
they did. But they wanted me to follow my passion,
and my passion was writing. Both of them were very
good writers, and so I never had that pressure to
follow in their path. That they really encouraged me. And
of course the irony is that you know, now after
my career news the story that I tell every day

(11:22):
is Madame Walker's story, and I think I would not
have been as excited and passionate about telling the story
if I had been forced to do that. And I
do think that one of the things in writing joy
goddess and really developing that relationship and that dynamic between

(11:43):
Madame Walker and Alilia Walker and then also with my
grandmother May is that you can't people do put expectations
on their children. And so I'm again fortunate to have
a wise mother who let me follow my own passion.
But it can back fire if you, you know, really
try to push somebody in a direction that doesn't really

(12:05):
fit their soul.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
That's so amazing that your parents were so supportive and wise,
and you talked a bit about them being part of
the or your mother at least being a part of
the family business, and your dad being a hair care
I have a question that I've always wanted to ask
someone like you, And so I think about where you
come from, write a lineage of visionary women who didn't
just build something powerful, they built something lasting, right, And
so I think about Madam C. J. Walker who laid

(12:29):
the foundation, Aliah Walker who carried it forward with the
cultural impact, and then you are now bringing it all
together preserving it decades later. Right. So It's one thing
to start something, but sustaining it takes a whole different
level of commitment, creativity and care. What do you think
it takes to sustain a legacy and not just start it.

(12:52):
Because part of me is wondering, like, did you all
have a family talk at the house and you were like, Okay,
Aliah Bundle, She's going to do this part of the business.
Like how do you keep that going in a family,
And how can younger generations they connected to that and
not be weighed down by the roots or just forget
it completely. You know.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
It's it's when I think about that there was not
intention and purpose early on. You know, sometimes things just
present themselves because I was really, you know, just happy
to be going along my little journalism path. But when
I was in graduate school in journalism at Columbia in

(13:29):
nineteen seventy five, my advisor on the faculty, Phyllis Garland,
was the only black woman on the faculty. And this
was an era when there were lots of the first
black professor, the only black professor, women's rights, reproductive rights,
civil rights bills, the doors were opening up for women.

(13:50):
I ended up going to work at NBC News because
women at Newsweek and at some of the local stations
had sued their employers because young women in television would
be hired as secretaries and researchers, and ten years later
they'd have the same jobs, and young men would be
hired as desk assistants and associate producers, and ten years

(14:12):
later they would be senior producers and executive producers. So
that that door was opening up. But I did not
really see myself doing anything that was related to the
Walker family. But Phil Garland, when I met with her
to talk about my master's paper, she listened to my

(14:32):
cliched and boring topics and at the end of the
conversation she said, your name is Alilia. Do you have
any connection to Madam Walker and Alilia Walker? And I said, yeah,
that's my family, and she said that's what you're going
to write about.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
So it was.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Really Phil giving me this, validating this for me at
a time when there were very few books being published
by or about African Americans, not that they weren't being written,
but they weren't being published. So I had that push
from somebody else outside my family who validated this for me.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Wow. Wow, So you were writing about your family from
early on.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Right, Well?

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, And the really the first you know, report that
I did was about Alilia Walker when I was a
senior in high school, and you know, I wasn't learning
any black history had you know, I had a great
public school education in the suburbs of Indianapolis, but no
black history.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
You know, there was like none of that.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
And somehow we persuaded the administration to let us have
a black humanities course my senior year. Now this is
Martin Luther King was assassinated in April of nineteen sixty eight.
I was elected vice president of student council in this
predominantly white school that same day. And then the next
year there was a lot of backlash, but with a

(15:58):
group of friends, you know, both white and black friends,
we persuaded the administration to let us have this black
humanities class that a teacher was willing to teach. And
for that class, I wrote my paper about Allia Walker
in the Harlem Renaissance, so I was really more interested
in her. Madam Walker was way too complicated for me
at that point. She was a businesswoman. People thought she

(16:22):
invented the hot comb. I had a big afro that year.
I was not really feeling Madame Walker at that stage.
Later I learned she did not invent the hot comb.
That she was, you know, so much more than that.
But at the time, Alilia Walker just absolutely fascinated me.
We had almost the same birthday. Obviously I had the
same name, and in our house we had books that

(16:45):
had belonged to Alilia Walker that had been in the
Dark Tower. So my mother pulled those books out and
you know, helped me with my paper. Wow, no more
than fifty years ago.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Wow, there we are today and you're releasing joy Goddess.
And so I think the thing for me, as working
in academia, one of the things that's always important to
me are when doing research are the sources. And you
have access to primary sources you throughout your career, you know,

(17:24):
and you talk about it in the book of being
able to interview people who knew your family, multiple members
of your family, right, and having access to important pieces
of family history. And so when you think about how

(17:47):
stories are told, how history gets passed down in the narratives,
like the narrative that you corrected for us, right, that
your great great grandmother did not invent the hot right,
but that is a but that is a story that
has passed down. I know lots of black folks who
will repeat that.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
My mission in life is just to end.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yes, yes, and so and so, tell us that that's
part of your mission. Tell us what it was like
to now be here writing Joy Goddess, and the importance
of telling an accurate narrative. You know.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
This was the more I learned about both Madam Walker
and Alilia Walker, the more I learned that the sort
of you know, paragraph worth of information that most people
might know was about eighty percent inaccurate.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
You know.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
But I think that it's true with a lot of
our historical figures, which is why we're in this moment
right now, when it's so important that we make sure
that our stories are being told. So it's really up
to us to tell these stories. But I, in writing
about Madam Walker, I kind of had to come to
terms with who she really was. And I was not

(19:09):
really as I say, I was not really feeling her
because of what people thought about her. And then I
read do Voice's obituary about her in the Crisis magazine.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
I was in college.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
I was writing a term paper and I was in
the stacks of Widener Library at Harvard, and there were
original issues of the Crisis and I stumbled upon this
oh bit. In August of nineteen nineteen a few months
after she died, and d Boys, who was my intellectual
hero at that time, had great things to say about her,
and I said, wow, you know, this gives me an

(19:43):
opportunity to rethink that. And then it took me a
little while, you know, in graduate school to actually do that.
But finding the voices of their contemporaries has really helped
me tell the story. And I think as women, Black women,
but as women, they have been diminished, as have many

(20:04):
other women. You know. We know, for instance, I to
b Wells Barnett, she's now getting her due. Her daughter,
you know, finished her memoir so that the crusade for justice,
and that was an example for me, like you have
to take hold of your story. We know that Madame

(20:25):
Walker had kind of been reduced to the hot comb essentially,
but through my research, I discovered she was a political activist,
she was a philanthropist. She provided jobs for thousands of women.
Not only did she you know, doing the hair care
products was important because it gave women a solution to
baldness and scalp infections that were so rampant during a

(20:46):
time when most Americans didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
But in some ways.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
For me, I realized that was a means to an end,
that she had created an army of women who were
economically independent and who were politically active. So I had
to reframe the narrative of her that came from, as
you know, from primary sources, from reading her letters, from
reading papers from other people in manuscript collections, from reading

(21:13):
the Black press. Thank god for the black newspapers, because
our stories would be, you know, without texture if we
didn't have that. With Alilia Walker, I had to kind
of rewind because a couple of Harlem Renaissance historians whose
work I generally respect, had reduced her to saying, oh,

(21:33):
she's spent the Harlem Renaissance playing bridge, that she really didn't,
you know, make much of a contribution. And I think
some of that was just you know, I mean sexism,
like we can read, you know, women aren't playing a role.
You know, she did like to play bridge, and she
liked to play poker, and you know, she liked to
have fun. But she also helped raise money for an

(21:55):
ambulance for soldiers in World War One. She helped to
raise money to build a the Center for Children in Harlem,
and she created this amazing space where artists and writers
and musicians and actors were comfortable at the Dark Tower.
So I wanted to create dimension for these women who

(22:16):
had been kind of caricatured. And I think that's true
for a lot of women in the Harlem Renaissance. In
the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance, we're starting to get
more of those stories.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
I think that is such a beautiful reminder for us to,
like you said, we have to take hold of our stories,
like we need to be telling our stories so that
we can leave that legacy. I think that's so powerful.
And one thing you wrote about in one of your
writings is how writing a biography can feel like a
form of temporary insanity, the immersion that it takes. And
so how did writing joy God is, how did it

(22:51):
change you?

Speaker 4 (22:54):
My house is a mess.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
You know, it's going to take a year to organize
things because I just you know, research after research and
files and all of those things, so that it just
it takes a lot. And there are I mean, it
changed me to know that I really could still write,
you know, some prose that sometimes rises to a nice level.

(23:22):
You know, you don't it's other people who have reviewed
it or blurbed it have been very complimentary, but you know,
I mean as a writer. I don't know about you all,
but there's always an insecurity when you're you know, when
you put your words on paper and somebody else has
to read them and are they gonna like it? And
you know, I know, I'm judgie whenever. You know, So

(23:45):
you hope, you hope for the best. So I feel
a real sense of accomplishment that I'm telling a story
that I really wanted to tell, that I want people
to know, and I'm feeling good about the feedback that
I'm giving. You know, I guess how it's change me.
I really persevere because I've been working on this for
a really really long time. There I have friends who

(24:07):
are like, yeah, well she's still working.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
On that book. She is she ever going to be finished?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
And so the you know, the perseverance sort of proving
to myself that I could, that I could get it
done has been has been important and I think and now,
you know, I'm just hoping that now I'm going to
be able to have some fun.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yes, yes you should, Yes, definitely, And so on this podcast,
we often talk about the mother daughter relationship and so
what can you tell us about the dynamics in your
own family between mother, daughter, granddaughter, grandmother, Like, what what

(24:53):
were the dynamics between the women and your family?

Speaker 2 (24:56):
So I'm so this will be a two part answer,
So we'll start with me and my and then we'll
talk about the other dynamic. You know, as I said,
my mom was just great. But my mother died when
I was in graduate school, you know, after when Phil
Garland gave me the charge to write this book. My
mom was had lung cancer. And when I went back

(25:17):
to Indianapolis from New York at Christmas, she was in
the hospital and was terminal. But you know, my twenty
three year old self couldn't you know, proccess that at
that moment. But I was telling her about writing this
and she was very encouraging, and I think she'd always
wanted me to write this but wasn't gonna pressure me.
But I you know, I said to her, she was

(25:38):
in her hospital bed and I said, you know, mommy,
I'm you know, I'm finding out essentially, Madame Walker's not perfect.
You know, there's some divorces or there's you know what,
you know, what do I do about those kinds of things?
And she set up in the hospital bed and she said,
tell the truth, baby, It's all right to tell the truth.
And that was one of the last conversations we had.

(26:01):
And it was really such a gift to me not
to have to, you know, feel like I had to
hide secrets so that I couldn't tell what was really
going on. And that allowed me to tell Madam Walker's
story in full with you know, both her the obstacles
and the ups and downs and the flaws and the
triumphs and that. So I was really grateful for that.
But I also think that she had felt some you know,

(26:26):
some things that she had to keep to herself. Her
parents were divorced, and you know what, and then she's
born in nineteen twenty eight, so that you know, nineteen thirties,
nineteen forties, that's a real stigma. And I think she
felt that and so she, you know, she said, dealt
with it, but she didn't want me.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
To feel that I had to have secrets now.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
So so that's so I feel really fortunate, you know,
and just wish she had lived long enough to to
see this. But I think about her almost every day,
I mean, you know, just the lessons and the good
feelings and good thought and the encouragement that I know
she gave me as I really examined the other generations

(27:07):
of women in my family in this maternal line. You know,
Madam Walker was driven. She was motivated, I think initially
by wanting to make her daughter's life better. But they
were living in deep poverty. And Alilia Walker was a
teenager really in her twenties when her mother began to

(27:28):
be successful in business. So she had her own ideas.
But at that time, there were like not a lot
of options, you know for black women. The schoolteacher maybe seemstress,
maybe you know, cater or maybe, but it was she
had to go into the family business. And Madam Walker
was pretty controlling, even though as one of their secretaries,

(27:50):
when I asked her what their relationship was like, she
said fire and ice, and she kind of looked up
and reflected, and she said, fire and ice. They loved
each other dearly, and they sometimes fought fiercely, so they
had a you know, I don't know what we would
probably call a bit of a codependent relationship that they were.
They always came back together and they had this mutual

(28:11):
love of music and culture and theater that they bonded over,
but matt Alia made some choices that her mother didn't
like in terms of the men in her life and
in terms of how she ran the New York office.
And so there was a, you know, a tense dynamic.
But I have this last letter that Madam Walker wrote

(28:33):
to Alila so early nineteen nineteen. They were, you know,
sort of at odds with each other over the business
and how Alia was running things, and the fact that
Alia wanted to marry somebody that Madam did not want
her to marry. And she had two boyfriends, both doctors,
both handsome, one was a good guy, one was a

(28:56):
bad boy, and yeah, you know, no, you know, and
so they were kind of bad odds. Madam was very
nervous about the bad boy. So the compromise was that
Alilia and my grandmother May would go to South America
to try to develop the business overseas while she got

(29:17):
this out of her system. And while Alilia was away,
Madam became very ill, and so Alilia wrote her a
letter from South America and said, I have decided to
marry James Arthur Kennedy, the good guy, and not Wiley,
the bad boy. And in this last letter that I have.

(29:39):
Madam Walker wrote to her and said, my dear baby,
I am so glad that you have decided to marry
Kennedy and not Wiley. I never thought Wiley would make
you happy, but I think Kennedy will so. Madam then
dies about five or six days after she writes this letter,
believing that Olilia is marrying wildly. Now should I not

(30:03):
tell the end of the story, I would just let
people read the book. Got to read the book toe
and I mean that she wants her daughter to be happy.
That that is how she dies, believing that her daughter
is going to be happy.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, soul, you.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Know, things ensue, and you would And it has more
twists and turns than you might imagine it does.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
And I feel like it's like a movie. It's very cinematic.
When you're reading it, you can kind of visualize all
the components. But another thing that came up for me
is I was reading is I was so surpris I
was surprised to be reminded of like how there were
many black people who were doing well back then because
of the stories that we often hear. But seeing that
she had speaking engagements around the world and she's in
the Hamptons, and I'm just like, they're living this amazing

(30:54):
life and they're wealthy and abundant, and it also humanized them.
I love that you listen to your mom when she said, like,
it's okay to tell the truth. That is so powerful.
It's okay to tell the truth. And I think that
reading that and seeing the complexity of who they were
as human beings, it also kind of makes them more
approachable in a way, like, these are these incredible legends

(31:16):
and heroes, but they're also so approachable and they're complex
people just like us. Right, And so I think about
Madam Walker's business acumen and then Alleland Walker's cultural influence.
You've witnessed empires being built, right, and so what would
you say empire means to you beyond just the business aspect.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
You know, it is having some intention about what you do,
but it is bringing in other people, empowering other people.
That for me, is what the key to this is.
For Madam Walker that she wanted to empower other women.

(31:59):
She wanted to help other women become economically independent.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
And I think that's why that's.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
One of the reasons that her story endures, because there
are still people who come up to me who say,
my mother, my great aunt, my grandmother has a diploma
from the Walker Beauty School. Somebody just sent me a
piece of memorabilia, a letter that the Madam Walker Club
in Montgomery, Alabama had written a letter to the governor

(32:28):
of Alabama in nineteen thirty three telling them that they
needed to free the Scottsboro Boys. So that sense of
political activism was something that Madam seeded, and that she
had a convention in nineteen seventeen and she told the women,
I want you to understand that as Walker agents, your
first duty is to humanity. I want others to look

(32:51):
at us and realize that we care not just about
ourselves but about others. And that political activism where they
a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson at the end of
the convention urging him to support legislation to make lynching
a federal crime. And we know, you know Wilson was
not going to do that. It was another one hundred

(33:11):
years before Biden signed that bill. But those Seeds that
were planning helped that the women who were beauticians, who
had their own businesses, helped to pay for the buses
that took people to the March on Washington in nineteen
sixty three. So for me, that's the legacy that continued
through and now it's you know, the Barbie doll of

(33:32):
Madame Walker, Barbidall, it's the little girls who do their
you know, their black wax museum pieces in kindergarten who
are Madame Walker. So I think it is that sense
of you know, encouraging others. For Alilia Walker, it's you know,
it's a very different kind of legacy and that I
have had to kind of excavate. And I think that

(33:54):
there's been the seeds of that where people have mentioned
her in the Harlem Renaissance, like they know something was there,
but they didn't have the details, and now I'm hoping
they'll have the details. But by creating a space where
people came together, where it was interracial, where her queer
and straight friends felt comfortable, where her international friends felt comfortable,

(34:16):
were uptown and downtown people came together. That was really
rare at the time, and she was one of the
few people who had the homes and the money, you know,
the places to allow that to happen. And her charisma,
as one friend said, brought people together who otherwise would
never have been in the same room. And sometimes people
discount that, they think that's trivia that you know, being

(34:39):
a host is trivial, but it was being a convener.
And I think that spirit is what her legacy is.
And I you know, and I think we see it now.
You know, we we have remained in a renaissance. You know,
Black folks are every generation something, we're creating something new.
There's a new thread, a new theme. And I'm just

(34:59):
seeing it all over the place with a great exhibits
that are art exhibits that are in the museums in
New York. I just saw something a friend, Melissa Bradley,
who's a venture capital person, has created something new called
Black Joy Martha's Vineyard where she's got She and her
wife have a restaurant that they're getting ready to open,

(35:20):
and they're creating a retreat for black women. So you
need to interview them. But I mean, I'm just seeing
like we we now are kind of three generations after
the Civil Rights Movement, I mean, after the Civil Rights Act,
after Brown versus Board of Education. I'm that generation that
benefited from that, grew up with that, and now you know,

(35:43):
they're the children and grandchildren of the of those of
us who were that generation, and we've had a lot.
We've benefited a lot from you know, what was called
affirmative action. We've benefited a lot from the doors that
were opened. We have used all of those advantages that
we were given. And now we know that door is

(36:05):
being shut. They're trying to shut that door. But I
just think we have way too much talent, we have
way too much smarts, we have way too much ability to.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
Shut it down.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Now, there may be some obstacles, but you know, that's
who we are as people. As a people, we you know,
these hard times, just let us find our strength.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Wow, I'm hearing, I'm feeling, you know, the embodiment of
your great grandmother coming through in your words. And you
know you mentioned the term black joy, and we talk
about this now as a having cultivating black joy is

(36:49):
a way to kind of resist all of the negativity
that and creating space for us to thrive in the
current political landscape that we live in. And you know,
making this connection that this is one hundred years after
the Harlem Renaissance, which was all about culture and joy,

(37:15):
and your great grandmother was actually Langston Hughes called her
the joy Goddess, and so what can you say about
what that was like for her to be that person
who cultivated, curated these spaces of joy in a time

(37:38):
period when black folks weren't supposed to be joyous.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Right, absolutely, well, you know, and I think it's important
for us to remember that the Harlem Renaissance was this
moment where people with migration was happening and people were
flocking to cities, and so Chicago had its own version
of the Renaissance, even La but Harlem was just all
of the pieces were coming together. But a lot of

(38:04):
that migration came out of people escaping lynching. It came
out of people not wanting to be sharecroppers anymore. It
came after World War One. It came in the midst
of Woodrow Wilson, one of the most racist presidents ever,
who resegregated, who segregated federal offices when they had not

(38:26):
been segregated before, who was a fan of the film
Birth of a Nation, who was not going to speak
out about lynching. So the Harlem Renaissance in some ways
was a resistance this creation of music and literature in
theater that so we were our response to that repression

(38:47):
and oppression was to come together and create our own
cultural output. And a younger generation like Langston Hughes and
Wally Thurman and others like you know, we're going to
set things on fire.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
And I think we're seeing.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
That and people may not even be conscious of that
at the moment that they're creating. Like people are just
you know, creating because you got to create. It's the
innate impulse to do that. And people may not be
thinking of I'm part of a larger, you know, network
of creation, or there's some legacy that I'm creating. It's

(39:26):
that I've got to express myself. And I think that's
what we're seeing now.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
So true. And it must be so amazing for you
to just witness so much, so much change within your lifetime.
And Domini, we want to ask you a couple of
questions about you to learn more about you and your legacy.
We've talked a bit about your you know, the ancestors,
and so one of the things I want to circle
back to is you mentioned that now that your book

(39:53):
is written, you're going to get your house cleaned, and
then you mentioned fun. What does fun look like for
you in this season? Of your life or what would
you what would you like it to look like?

Speaker 2 (40:04):
You know, fun is really spending time with my friends,
because when you're writing a book, you are you know,
it's solitary, and there are just a lot of things
that I haven't been able to do, and you know,
like you want to stay in extra day and you know,
and really be a good friend. I have a lot
of unread books that I want to read. Most of
the ones behind me I've read because this is my

(40:25):
research for the book. And there's a lot of traveling
that I want to do. I have not done as
much international traveling, you know. I think now it's a
little tricky, you know, being an American traveling abroad, and
so you know, I may have to be closer to
home and put some of those things on hold. But
that's you know, friends reading books that I haven't had

(40:48):
time to read, and traveling, you know, maybe going to
more movies like I saw Centers read, you know, but
there's my spring of movies that I haven't seen that
I've put off, so that you know, just having time
to do that to fill myself.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
Been going to a lot of museum exhibits.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
There's so much I went to see the Elizabeth Catlet
exhibit in d C, the Amy Sheryld exhibit in New York.
You know, I'm filling my soul right now, and I
think that's part of the survival that we have to do.
And everybody is not able to do that, but for
those of us who have that, you know, the ability
to do that, we need to keep ourselves as strong

(41:26):
as possible so that we can help others.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Ooh, I love that. And so as you think about
what you want your legacy to be, what comes up.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
For you, Well, I want to that my family stories
encourage other people to tell their family stories, because everybody's
family has amazing people. I happen to have these two
sort of larger than life famous people, but there are
also other family members whose lives really fascinate me that

(42:06):
I want to you know, I'm not writing another book
like this because this these books, these books that I
write take a long time because it's original research and
it's you know, verifying, checking, blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
But I can tell.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Their stories in other forms, and so I want to
be able to tell these other family members stories to
encourage people to tell there, so that I think that's important.
Another thing that I that's really important to me, and
I'm doing a commencement speech in a couple of weeks,
and the message that I usually try to give includes

(42:44):
this to really do things, not only for the money.
I mean, I know that's you know, people got to
make money, they got to pay off their loans and
all of that. But one of the ways that I
had one of the things that has sustained me through
the through the thirty years career network television news, which
mostly was great and you know, great colleagues, great mentors,

(43:07):
fulfilling professional endeavors, all of those things were good. But
like everybody else, I ran up against, you know, some
bosses who weren't really my fan and who I wasn't
there fan either, at times when I was ready to quit.
But I there were two things that sustained me. One

(43:28):
is that I always tried to have enough money saved
so if I needed to quit that day, I could
survive for a while. So there was that, and I
never did quit that day, but there was but I
had a plan. And the other thing is that there
were a few times when I hit a wall with

(43:51):
a boss or with a situation where things weren't moving
or I was very frustrated, but I got very involved
in alumni activities at both my college and my graduate school,
and that allowed me to continue to develop some leadership ability.
And so while I wasn't why I might have been,
you know, frustrated at work, I was being fulfilled in

(44:14):
another way. And that volunteer work, unpaid, led to a
lot of leadership roles, so that I became chairman of
the board of the National Archives Foundation, and I became
vice chair of Columbia's boarder trustees. And I've you know,
now I've like I've had my time in lead in
those really those leadership roles. Now I'm not I don't

(44:37):
really want to be the first person who gets the
call now, but I can. I'm happy to be, you know,
the advisor, the sounding board, that kind of thing. But
so I think there's a season for each of those things.
But that's that's what is important to me, That the
legacy of encouraging other people to tell their family stories,

(44:57):
but also developing leadership rolls and really volunteering in ways
that you know you benefit from but you're also giving
something back.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
That's a great wisdom and advice thank you so much
for that. And miss Bundles, we don't want to get
off in your business. But you did mention I believe
your age in another interview, and I was blown away
because you look amazing. Your hair is gorgeous, your skin
is glowing. Can you just give us some can you
give us some tips? What would you say you've learned
about taking care of yourself and your body and mind

(45:32):
over the years, and if you want to get as
detailed as possible, well, our listeners and we'll be taking
notes over here.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah, besides the tummy tuck that I want, but I'm not.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Gonna get.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Nothing wrong with that, you know, listen, there's a thing
you know that after a point, you know, my mother
was really the person who taught me about skin care.
And I remember she bought a steamer and we would
you know, steam our faces or you could do that
over this. So but she when her parents divorced, she
for a while she lived with her father and his aunts,

(46:07):
so her great aunts, who were both you know, maiden aunts,
unmarried women, and she said, you know, nobody really taught
me how to take care of my skin, and I
want to make sure that I'm going to teach you.
So that was a key from her. I exercise. I
go to the gym almost every day. I started taking
pilates a few months ago.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
I love it. I'm on the Reformer.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
I do a yoga class on Sundays, so I am
you know, I'm trying to keep my body together and
that helps my mental state. I'm kind of an insomniac,
so I sleep with the earbuds and a meditation tape
because that's the way that I can go to sleep,
and you know, I do my chakras and think about that.

(46:52):
So you know, those are the things that helped me.
I was talking to somebody the other day who I
don't really know well, and you know, she we had
run into each other at something, and she called me
and she said, do you know you have time to
go to coffee?

Speaker 4 (47:08):
And you know, that's the kind of thing you want
to say yes to people, but.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I'm like right now, I'm just like right now, I'm
just trying to get through the to do list.

Speaker 4 (47:15):
So no, you know, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't
do that.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
And she said something to me, Well, you know, I
tell my students that they need to make sure they
take time to breathe, and I'm like, I am taking
time to breathe. Believe me, I am doing yoga, I
am doing pilates, I am taking time to breathe.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
But I still have all this other stuff that I
have to do.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
Wow, thank you, Thank you for reinforcing this notion of
like taking care of yourself amidst all the things that
we have going on. And I don't have a steamer
at home right now, but you're making me think about
going to put my face over that stove. I preserve this,

(48:02):
preserve my youthful skin.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Well, you know, and I will say I for for
a while, I don't know, maybe for a decade or so,
I went I got a facial every month, and it
was not because my skin was in bad shape, but
I just loved the pampering. And I think that's, you know,
that's very important. And I'm you know, and I have
to show so here see my nails. This is the

(48:29):
first time I've had gail nails.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
What do you think about it?

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, it's interesting, but I have kind of my nails
are not great. My natural nails are not great. But
I I know that I'm going to be signing books
and I was doing a little video, a little promotional
video for the publisher, and I was gonna I was
handling some of the Walker memorabilia, and I'm like, I
can't really be a camera and have monthly nails. So

(48:56):
that is that's kind of now a new another little
thing I've added. So it's let me see, let me
see your nails, let me see, let me see. I
know you all have nice nail see. I knew you did,
so I so this is new, this is new for me.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
These are actually too long.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
And so when I get you know, when I get
them redone in another week or so, it's going to
be a little shorter. But I I was in New
York and doing an event, and I knew I wanted
to get my nails done. And so there was a
sister who had like really fancy, you know, hand painted
all marbled nails, and she said, well, I will, I

(49:31):
will check out some nail salons for you and pick
one for you. So I went to a nail salon
at one hundred and twenty fifth and Madison got there
at ten o'clock, wasn't open yet. And then this van
drives up at a bunch of people get out of
the van, I'm like, oh, this is kind and all
of the you know, but they and all of the
nail technicians were men, and so that was unusual. And so,

(49:55):
you know, I was trying to communicate with the young
man and he was not He didn't really speak a
lot of it English, and I obviously do not speak Korean.
So we were trying to communicate. And I had picked almond,
the almond shape, so that's because that's what looked nice.
I thought that looked nice. So he's doing this and
I'm like, my nails are out to here, and I'm like,
you know, I'm saying that too long too, and he's like,

(50:18):
not almond, not almend. I'm like, I don't care, it's
too long. So he cut them back, but they're still
too long. But I didn't have you know, I didn't
have the ability to really communicate well with him. So
now I'm you know, there's a nail salt next to
my pilates studios. So I went in there the other
day and they're gonna hook me up.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
I thought, how that is too and then know the
too long You're just like, oh gosh, I gotta get
That's why my mind is so short now, so we
totally get it, but.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
This can have such step up.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Exactly why are you doing household stuff like I need
to hire someone to do everything about when they had
the long nails. But this was such an amazing conversation.
Thank you so much for the work that you do.
Thank you for what you've done, and we definitely want
to make sure that people can go get their copy
of the book. So please just let folks know how
they can support. If there are any next steps you
want them to take, we'd love for you to share

(51:08):
that now because this was so amazing.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Thank you and what a great conversation. I am so
happy to meet you all. You know the things that
people can do follow me on social It's at Alilia
Bundles a L E l I A Bundles and I'm
on all those spaces, though my TikTok game is not
so great yet, but a lot on Instagram and blue

(51:31):
Sky and threads, so that's and Facebook, so I'm there.
Just pre order the book if you go to my
website at Alilia bundles dot com. There's a link, but
also on my social there are links for preordering, but
preordering is.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Really bookshop dot org.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Turtulla, Amazon, your local you know, wherever you buy books
online or in a store and ask to order it.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
That makes a huge difference. The preorders do.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Come to my Eve events that the calendar is posted
on my social I'm in New York, Boston, d C, Philadelphia,
Martha's Vineyard on July thirtieth, if anybody is there, and
then I'm you know, I'm looking for other opportunities. I
think Miami, La, Atlanta, Chicago. So you know, if you
want to invite me at your bookstore, wets to invite.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Me, please do.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Hey lady, it's doctor dom here from the Cultivating her
Space podcast. Are you currently a resident of the state
of California and contemplating starting your therapy journey? Well, if so,
please reach out to me at doctor Dominique Brusard dot com.
That's D R D O M I N I q

(52:49):
U E B R O U S S A r
D dot com to schedule a free fifteen minute consultation.
I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for tuning
into Cultivating her Space. Remember that while this podcast is
all about healing, empowerment, and resilience, it's not a substitute

(53:13):
for therapy. If you or someone you know need support,
check out resources like Therapy for Black Girls or Psychology Today.
If you love today's episode, do us a favor and
share it with a friend who needs some inspiration, or
leave us a quick five star review. Your support means

(53:33):
the world to us and helps keep this space thriving.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
And before we meet again, repeat after me. My actions
are aligned with purpose, leading to continuous transformation. Keep thriving, Lady,
and tune in next Friday for more inspiration from cultivating
her Space. In the meantime, be sure to connect with
us on Instagram at her Space Podcast

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S26E11: How Black Women Build Empires: A Conversation with Madam C.J. Walker’s Great-Great-Granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles

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