Celebrating Columbia J-School’s Centennial

By A'Lelia Bundles | Published: April 21, 2012

Columbia J-School Dean Nicholas Lemann and Columbia President Lee Bollinger at renaming of Pulitzer Hall

April 21, 2011–My alma mater, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, launched its centennial celebration yesterday afternoon with the renaming of the Journalism School Building and an evening of festitivies.

More than 40 descendants of newspaper publisher  and J-School founding benefactor Joseph Pulitzer joined Dean Nicholas Lemann, Columbia President Lee Bollinger and a crowd of alumni and staff for the unveiling of the newly carved “Pulitzer” name.

"Pulitzer" was carved above the entryway to Columbia's Journalism School in honor of the centennial and its founder

At Columbia’s Miller Theatre, we watched the premier of Jesse Dylan’s Centennial Celebration film.

As emcee for the Centennial program, I had the pleasure of reviewing  the stellar achievements of a century’s worth of J-School grads from the new collection, “50 Great Stories.” It was an honor to introduce Michael Pulitzer, grandson of Joseph Pulitzer and former Pulitzer Inc. board chair, and Robert Caro , the Pulitzer Prize winning biographer and the evening’s keynote speaker. We all were moved by NPR reporter Martina Guzman , J-School ’08, whose award-winning investigative coverage of Detroit challenges the status quo.

Columbia Grad School of Journalism Program April 20, 2012

After the program, we gathered in the J-School’s World Room for dinner. What a nice coincidence, after an evening of interesting conversation, to discover that my tablemate, Michael Pulitzer, Jr., also is my college classmate.  Truly small world.

My remarks about my accomplished fellow alumni and my intro of Robert Caro follow. Read More »

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Four Free Women: 1916 Emancipation Reunion

By A'Lelia Bundles | Published: April 15, 2012

Annie Parrum, Anna Angales, Elizabeth Berkeley and Sadie Thompson--all older than 100--at a 1916 Emancipation reunion (Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress)

I couldn’t stop staring at the photo. Four elderly black women, “all older than 100, at a convention in the District in 1916,” said the caption in last Friday’s Washington Post.

Hoping to learn more about them, I logged on to the Root DC’s page of the  Post’s website. Instead I found only an image of Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Day article about the April 1862 legislation that freed 3,128 of the District’s enslaved citizens.

Within a few minutes of online research, though, I discovered two more photos taken on the same day in 1916 by Harris & Ewing at an Emancipation reunion.  As the official White House photographers of the early 1900s and then the nation’s largest photo news service, they rarely snapped shots of African Americans. Read More »

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Madam Walker Honored: A Great Hoosier

By A'Lelia Bundles | Published: March 6, 2012

Madam C. J. Walker honored as a Great Hoosier in Indianapolis on March 2, 2012

Madam C. J. Walker was honored in the inaugural class of Hoosier Legacy Award nominees with a memorial on Georgia Street in Indianapolis on March 2.

Descendants of several of the ten iconic Hoosiers joined Mayor Greg Ballard as he unveiled the seven-foot-tall pillars in the plaza that had hosted the 2012 Super Bowl Village a few weeks earlier.

Mayor Ballard unveils a Legacy Award Pillar. Looking on are Lance Bundles, Judith Ransom Lewis and A'Lelia Bundles (Credit: Robert Scheer/IndyStar.com)

Madam Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles, presented remarks on behalf of the families. “As I pondered the lives of these great Hoosiers,” she told the audience, “I couldn’t help but imagine them all seated together at a magnificent banquet. What would Madam Walker–a pioneer of the modern hair care and cosmetics industries–have to say to Eli Lilly–a pioneer of the modern pharmaceutical industry–about building a business?”

Other honorees–whose lives spanned two centuries from 1768 to 1968–are Pulitzer Prize winners Booth Tarkington and Ernie Pyle, Ben-Hur author Lew Wallace, Grammy Award winner Wes Montgomery, Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Harrison, suffragette May Wright Sewall and native American leader Tecumseh. The selections were made by a panel convened by the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee, a civic organization chaired by attorney Deborah Daniels.

A'Lelia Bundles speaks on behalf of the Legacy Award families (Photo: Robert Scheer/IndyStar.com)

Among the descendants and family friends who attended were Robert Montgomery, son of jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery; Ted and and Anita Sewall, representing the May Wright Sewall family; Lance Bundles, great-great-grandson of Madam Walker; and Judith Ransom-Lewis and Robert Ransom, grandchildren of Walker Company attorney F. B. Ransom.

Madam Walker Theatre Center board chair Joni Collins was joined by several staff members from the National Historic Landmark. Read More »

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Happy Birthday, Madam Walker! Born December 23, 1867)

By A'Lelia Bundles | Published: December 23, 2011

Madam C. J. Walker

Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana on December 23, 1867. Her prospects for success were nil.

Sarah Breedlove was born in this Delta, LA cabin in 1867

 

Yet, by the time she died in May 1919 at Villa Lewaro–her Irvington-on-Hudson, New York mansion–she had transformed herself into a millionaire entrepreneur, philanthropist, patron of the arts and political activist.

Madam Walker died at Villa Lewaro in May 1919.

To learn more about Walker’s life, visit the Madam Walker Family Archives’s Birthday Wish for Madam Walker

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My Grandmother’s Harlem Renaissance Wedding

By A'Lelia Bundles | Published: December 1, 2011
 
Mae Walker’s headdress was inspired by the recently opened King Tut tomb

© Whenever I see my grandmother Mae’s 1923 wedding photographs, I can’t help but marvel at the elegance and extravagance. I also can’t resist searching her eyes for clues to the drama I now know was roiling just behind the scrim of the carefully choreographed scenes.

Newspaper headlines from the Pittsburgh Courier –“Heiress Weds ‘Mid Pomp-Splendor”—to the New York World—“Thousands Attend Wedding of Negro Heiress in Harlem”—tell only part of the story.

Mae Walker's 1923 wedding was the social event of the season (aleliabundles.com)

For Harlem’s social event of the season and of the year, there were parties galore, guests from three continents and a groom from a prominent family. There also was a major glitch:  the bride was in love with someone else. Read More »

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  • Books

    On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles
    • A New York Times Notable Book

    • An ALA Black Caucus Honor Book
    • “told with controlled passion and integrity”—
      Atlanta Journal-Constitution
    • “a fascinating book about a fascinating women”
      USA Today
    "On Her Own Ground"