A'Lelia Bundles | |
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.jpg) Bundles in 2012 | |
| Born | (1952-06-07)June 7, 1952 (age 72) |
| Education | Harvard College (BA) Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (MSJ) |
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| Family | A'Lelia Walker (great-grandmother) Madam C. J. Walker (great-great-grandmother) |
| Awards | duPont Gold Baton, 1994 American Book Award, 1992 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Book, 2002 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2015 MacDowell Colony Fellowship, 2017 |
A'Lelia Perry Bundles (born June 7, 1952)[2] is an American journalist, news producer and author, known for her 2001 biography of her great-great-grandmotherMadam C. J. Walker.
A'Lelia Bundles grew up inIndianapolis in a family of civic minded business executives. She was named after her great-grandmotherA'Lelia Walker (1885–1931), a central figure of theHarlem Renaissance[3] and daughter of entrepreneurMadam C. J. Walker. Bundles' mother, A'Lelia Mae Perry Bundles (1928–1976), vice president of the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company and active in local and state Democratic politics, also served as a member of the Washington Township School Board and was a fiscal administrator with the City of Indianapolis. Her father, S. Henry Bundles Jr. (1927-2019),[4] became president of Summit Laboratories, another hair care manufacturer, in 1957 after having worked briefly with the Walker Company. He served as an Indianapolis 500 Festival director for many years and was a board member of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau. He was the founding president[4] of the Center for Leadership Development, a youth enrichment organization in Indianapolis.
Bundles graduated in 1970 in the top five per cent of her class fromNorth Central High School, where she was co-editor of theNorthern Lights, vice president of student council and co-chair and founder of the human relations council, which addressed racial issues in a student population less than ten percent black. In 1974 Bundles graduated magna cum laude fromHarvard andRadcliffe Colleges when women admitted to Radcliffe attended classes beside male students at Harvard and received a joint diploma.[5] She was inducted into Harvard's Alpha Iota chapter ofPhi Beta Kappa.[6] Bundles received a master's degree from theColumbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1976.[5]
She was a producer and executive withABC News, serving as director of talent development in Washington, D.C., and New York; as deputy bureau chief in Washington, DC; as a producer forWorld News Tonight with Peter Jennings; and as chair of a diversity council advising ABC News president David Westin. Prior to joining ABC News, she was a producer withNBC News in the New York, Houston and Atlanta bureaus forThe Today Show andNBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. She also was a producer in Washington, D.C., for two of NBC's magazine programs co-anchored byConnie Chung andRoger Mudd during the 1980s.
Her book,On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker (Scribner, 2001), was named aNew York Times' Notable Book in 2001,[7] and received the Association of Black Women Historians 2001 Letitia Woods Brown Prize for the best book on black women's history. In 2020, the book was adapted into theNetflix mini-seriesSelf Made starringOctavia Spencer. Bundles' young adult bookMadam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur, (Chelsea House, 1991) received a 1992American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.[8]
She is a trustee emerita[5] of Columbia University and chair emerita of the Board of Directors of theNational Archives Foundation.[9]
She is on several nonprofit boards including the HarvardRadcliffe Institute for Advanced Study's Schlesinger Library, the March on Washington Film Festival,[10] Columbia Global Reports[11] and the Women's Suffrage National Monument Foundation.[12] Past board memberships include the Harvard Alumni Association nominating committee, the Harvard Club of Washington, DC board, the Radcliffe College Trustees Board, and theNational Women's Hall of Fame board. She was president[13] of the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association from 1999 to 2001 and chaired the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's alumni advisory committee to change the school's alumni organization in 2006.[14]
As Madam C. J. Walker's great-great-granddaughter and biographer, she founded the Madam Walker Family Archives and represents the Walker estate for intellectual property and promotional matters. She is the brand historian[15] for MADAM[16] by Madam C. J. Walker, a line of hair care products manufactured by Sundial Brands (a division of Unilever) in partnership with Walmart.
She collaborated with Mattel on the production of a Madam Walker Barbie as part of Barbie's Inspiring Women Series in August 2022.[17]
Her nonfiction biography,On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker was optioned for a 2020 Netflix series, Self Made, starring Octavia Spencer. She has discussed the historical inaccuracies and behind-the-scenes creative differences in several interviews, podcasts and articles including an Andscape article[18] where she wrote "I'd been part of a complex and frustrating dance as my nonfiction, fact-based material was translated from book to movie by scriptwriters whose visions, goals and sensibilities often were quite different from mine...I had been anticipatingHidden Figures. InsteadThe Real Housewives of Atlanta was staring back at me."[18]
Bundles is a member of theDaughters of the American Revolution as a direct descendant ofAmerican Revolutionary War patriot Ishmael Roberts.[25]
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