A’Lelia Bundles is the author 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 – the fact-based biography that was the inspiration for Self Made, a fictional four-part Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer. She is at work on her fifth book, The Joy Goddess ofHarlem: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, a biography of her great-grandmother, whose parties and arts patronage helped define that era.
She is brand historian for MADAM by Madam C. J. Walker, an innovative line of hair care products inspired by Madam Walker, manufactured by Sundial Brands and developed in partnership with Walmart. In February 2022 she was named the inaugural Center for Africana Studies and Culture Prestigious Fellow in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI.
Ms. Bundles is a vice chair emerita of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees and immediate past chair of the board of the National Archives Foundation. She also is a board member of the March on Washington Film Festival, Columbia Global Reports and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She founded the Madam Walker Family Archives, the largest private collection of Walker ephemera, photographs and memorabilia.
Ms. Bundles was a network television executive and producer for thirty years at NBC News and then at ABC News, where she was Washington, DC deputy bureau chief and director of talent development.
Her articles and essays have been published in the New York Times Book Review, TheUndefeated.com, Variety, Parade, Ms., O Magazine, Essence, several encyclopedias and books, and on her blog at www.aleliabundles.com. As a speaker and emcee, she has appeared at universities, corporations and book festivals, as well as on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, NPR, PBS and BBC. She has served as an advisor for numerous documentaries, biographies, scholarly papers and history texts.
A recipient of an Emmy and a du Pont Gold Baton, she has participated in writing residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. In 2021 she was named to the Forbes 50 Over 50 Impact List.
She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received a masters degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
