A’Lelia Bundles, Emmy-winning NBC news producer and journalist shares stories from her best-selling book about her great-great-grandmother, Madame C.J. Walker, one of the first black women entrepreneurs of the 20th century. The child of former slaves, Walker rose from an uneducated field hand to an internationally successful businesswoman, political activist, and philanthropist by creating a line of hair products for black women. What is the legacy of Madame C.J. Walker?
Speakers
A'Lelia Bundles
A’Lelia Bundles is at work on her fifth book–The Joy Goddess of Harlem–a biography of her great-grandmother’s international travels, philanthropy, parties and friendships with some of the most famous musicians, writers, and artists of the 1920s. On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker was named the 2001 best book on black women’s history by the Association of Black Women Historians.
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Civil Rights
FREEDOM LOST, FREEDOM WON: American History Through a Black Family’s Story
The American story is often packaged as a linear climb toward a “more perfect union”. But for many Black families, history feels less like a ladder and more like a pendulum—swinging between hard‑won breakthroughs and the inevitable backlashes that follow. Join Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and commentator Eugene Robinson for an exploration of this rhythmic history.
Arts
I'll Make Me a World
Filmmaker and co-executive producer of the PBS television series, I'll Make Me A World: A Century of African-American Arts, Sam Pollard talks about his dedication to chronicling the Black experience in America.
Culture
The Richer Sex
Journalist and author Liza Mundy predicts that in the coming decades, women will overtake men as primary breadwinners and become the most financially powerful generation of women in history.