Madam Walker's November 8, 1916 letter to F. B. Ransom (MadamWalkerFamilyArchives www.aleliabundles.com)

Combine clues in a faded letter from November 1916 with the algorithms of Facebook and the distance across the decades evaporates.

Finding descendants and relatives of people who knew my great-great-grandmother, Madam C. J. Walker, and her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, two decades ago when I was researching On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker often was a hit or miss proposition.

But even then–long before we had all the Internet tools we now take for granted–I had the sense that the ancestors were leading me to the interviews I did in the homes of surviving Harlem Renaissance icons Alberta Hunter, Dorothy West, Bruce Nugent and Geraldyn Dismond (later known as Jet’s society columnist, Gerri Major) and artist Romare Bearden, whose mother, Bessye Bearden, had been a close friend of A’Lelia Walker’s.

Back then, it was a phone call and the curiosity I’d cultivated as a long time TV news journalist that helped me make the connections. Now it’s Facebook, Google, Ancestry.com and an array of friendships I’ve been fortunate to make through years of social and professional linkages.

Imagine my delight a few days ago, when the universe again activated those two degrees of separation, this time to photojournalist Joseph Dumas, whose grandfather and great-uncle, had made a brief appearance in On Her Own Ground because of their hospitality to Madam Walker during a visit to Natchez, Mississippi. In a November 8, 1916 letter to her attorney, F. B. Ransom, she had gone on and on about the extraordinary and distinguished Doctors Dumas: Albert Woods, an 1899 graduate of Illinois Medical College, and Henry Joseph, a 1901 graduate of Meharry’s School of Pharmacy. Madam’s hosts–Albert and his wife, Cornelia Harrison Dumas–owned one of the finest homes in Natchez, the Mississippi River town long known for its antebellum era wealth.

From Jackson, Mississippi, Madam Walker wrote: “I surely made a hit in Natchez and am sure we’ll get some good business from there. Write a nice letter to Drs. Henry and Albert Dumas [who] vied with each other in showing us every courtesy [and who] not only refused to take pay for our room and board, but carriage hire, medicine, professional services and even advertising. I never have met such people before in all my life to be strangers. I’d like so much for you to know them.”

Clearly the same graciousness Madam Walker experienced 95 years ago this month continued through the generations as evidenced by this note I received from Dr. Albert Dumas’s grandson, Joseph, a few days ago: “I see we have a mutual friend in Vern Smith, formerly Atlanta Bureau Chief of Newsweek. As a boy, Vern had been a patient of my father, Dr. Albert W. Dumas, Jr. (1903-1971); and we have a link through my grandfather. Thank you for the informative and nuanced biography of Madam C.J. Walker. You were the only one who could have done the subject justice. In the narrative, you wrote of my paternal grandfather, Dr. Albert W. Dumas, Sr.(1876-1945), and his brother, Dr. Henry Dumas, of Natchez, Miss., who hosted Madam Walker during her visit to Mississippi circa, 1917-1919. One day, I had hoped an opportunity would present itself to express my family’s gratitude for your entry about our patriarchs of whom we remain proud. Today, Facebook presented such an opportunity.”

Truly Joseph Dumas–a kindred spirit in the preservation of family stories–made my day. And what patriarchs, indeed, he has to celebrate! His grandfather, Dr. Albert Woods Dumas, Sr, was born in Houma, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana into a large family of achievers. He was elected president of the National Medical Association in 1941 just fifteen years after yet another brother, Dr. Michel O. Dumas, had served in the same position. Dr. Michel also served as chairman of the board of Howard University’s School of Medicine. Dr. Albert, Sr. and his pharmacist brother, Henry, owned a medical building and drugstore in downtown Natchez and were founding members of the Natchez Negro Business League.

At this point, I’ve spent so many years doing research on African American success stories that I’m no longer surprised by the existence of people like the Dumas Brothers, which is not to say that I don’t also still stand in awe of their accomplishments. The Doctors Dumas may have been the exception to the rule a century ago, but the intelligence, motivation and hunger that spurred them on was in rich supply among black men and women born during the generations immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Recently I’d read an article about Madam Walker in which another writer speculated about whether she had been able to stay in hotels at a time of the most horrendous segregation and discrimination. Indeed, I was able to tell the article’s publisher that she occasionally had been a guest in the few first class black-owned hotels that existed in the United States during the early 20th century, but I also shared that she usually preferred to stay in private homes of prominent African Americans in the many cities she visited. Seeing photos of the Dumas residence, which still stands in Natchez today, is evidence of why she had such a preference.

The more I write about Madam Walker and A’Lelia Walker–and the world they inhabited–the more I realize how few people truly know the accomplishments of successful African Americans during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many readers tell me how surprised they are to learn that there were were black doctors, attorneys, entrepreneurs and entertainers who owned homes and businesses and who traveled and lived abroad. Many think the high achievement we see today is a recent phenomenon. But it most surely is not.

For a fascinating history lesson, check out Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite 1880 to 1920 by Willard Gatewood, a dear friend and former University of Arkansas professor, who died just a few weeks ago. For more about Natchez’s prosperous black community, take a look at Jack E. Davis’s Race against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930.
And by all means, visit Joseph Dumas’s blog, both to learn more about his fascinating family and to experience the stunning photos he’s taken during his world travels through the years.

For more information about Madam Walker–the early 20th century entrepreneur, philantrophist, arts patron and activist–and A’Lelia Walker–the Harlem Renaissance arts patron and salon hostess–we welcome you to our websites: http://www.madamcjwalker.com/and www.madamwalkerfamilyarchives.wordpress.com

Visit us on Facebook at A’Lelia Bundles-Author, Madam C. J. Walker Biography and Madam Walker Family Archives

Copyright: A’Lelia Bundles (www.aleliabundles.com)  If you quote from this article, please credit A’Lelia Bundles (www.aleliabundles.com)

Between friendship links on Facebook and research on Ancestry.com (which I've decided is Facebook for the dearly departed), I've been able to make connections and conduct a level of intimate research for my new book about my great-grandmother, A'Lelia Walker, that I cou … Read More

via Madam Walker/A'Lelia Walker Family Archives

Gravesite of Madam Walker and A’Lelia Walker at Woodlawn Cemetery

Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx–where Madam C. J. Walker, A’Lelia Walker, Miles Davis, Joseph Pulitzer, Celia Cruz, Duke Ellington, Herman Melville, Countee Cullen and hundreds of other famous New Yorkers are buried–was named a National Historic Landmark yesterday.

Check out our Woodlawn Cemetery Blog post at www.aleliabundles.com

Roland Hayes's 1924 Chicago Concert (from Madam Walker Family Archives of A'Lelia Bundles/www.aleliabundles.com)

I learned to read music on a Chickering baby grand piano that had belonged to my great-grandmother, A’Lelia Walker, but it really was my mother, A’Lelia Mae Perry Bundles, and my grandmother, Mae Walker Perry, who had musical talent. As the only legally adopted daughter of A’Lelia Walker and granddaughter of entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, Mae had been afforded many privileges, including harp lessons and enrollment at Spelman College.

Several years ago, I came across this  program from lyric tenor Roland Hayes’s January 15, 1924 program at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, which Mae attended, in my Madam Walker/A’Lelia Walker Family Archives. At the time of the concert, Mae recently had moved to Chicago. Like others in the city’s black community, she had looked forward to hearing Hayes sing selections from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” black British composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s “Hiawatha” and spirituals, including “Go Down Moses,”  arranged by Harry T. Burleigh, in one of his first American concerts after his triumphant return from Europe. After the performance, one black newspaper reported:  “The absolute hush that has been referred to so often in Mr. Hayes’ concerts was evident here as before, for the audience seemed not to want to miss a note that was so beautifully produced. The wonderful diction, which made every person able to understand the words uttered even if in a foreign language, that they were not able to interpret. His German, French and Italian were given with the ease and accuracy of a native of those countries, and it is interesting to know that Mr. Hayes speaks French and German. Encores were many and still more were desired.”

Hayes (June 3, 1887 to Janaury 1, 1977) was a “lyric tenor and considered to be the first African American male concert artist to receive major critical acclaim.”

   No doubt, Mae was among the fashionably dressed members of the crowd who caught the reporter’s attention. “The boxes were occupied by many whose names stand at the top of the North side social registers. The magnificent furs and evening wraps of the boxholders and the audience in general made one think of the Auditorium at this season.”

Visit us on Facebook at A’Lelia Bundles and at Madam Walker Family Archives. For more information about the Madam Walker Family Archives, contact Archives president A’Lelia Bundles at this link.

Madam Walker, Madame Walker

A'Lelia Walker loved flowers! Orchids. Dahlias. Gladiolas. Roses. (From the Madam Walker Family Archives of A'Lelia Bundles www.aleliabundles.com)

My great-grandmother, A’Lelia Walker–whom Langston Hughes called the “Joy Goddess of Harlem”–loved flowers. Dahlias. Gladiolas. Roses. Orchids. Nothing pleased her more than for her friends to fill her home with flowers on her birthday, June 6th, or any other special occasion for that matter.

She had everything else–houses, diamonds, furs, cars–plus great friends, a gregarious spirit and a love of life. Well, almost everything, but you’ll have to wait for my new book, Joy Goddess, to learn the rest of the story!

In fact, I’ve been working so hard on the book, that I’d actually forgotten today was her birthday until my good friend, Janet Sims-Wood, posted a story on Facebook noting that today also is the birthday of Portia Washington Pittman, Booker T. Washington’s only daughter. Heavens, I thought, when I read that. Both of these daughters of larger than life figures not only shared the pressure and expectations of others, but also a birthday! That gives me even more to ponder as I write about how A’Lelia Walker handled being Madam C. J. Walker’s daughter.

In honor of the 126th year of A’Lelia Walker’s birth, I’m posting a gallery of photos–most of which have never been published before–on Facebook. I looked in my archives this morning and pulled out the original invitation to the Dark Tower, her Harlem Renaissance salon; the registration for her 1927 Lincoln and several photos from her personal scrapbook.

If you’re on Facebook, visit our “Madam Walker and A’Lelia Walker Family Archives” and “Madam C. J. Walker Biography” pages to see a gallery of images from my personal collection. If you’d like to join my personal Facebook page, you’ll find the link at www.aleliabundles.com. For more information about Madam C. J. Walker, visit us at www.madamcjwalker.com

Visit us at http://www.aleliabundles.com/ and at www.madamcjwalker.com

Here is a sermon he delivered at Duke University

Although I never attended tea at his home, it was, as you can see from the video, a Cambridge tradition of much popularity.

May he rest in peace.

New York Times obituary 3-1-2011

Lonnie Bunch, A'LeliaBundles, Tuliza Fleming and John Fleming at the ASALH luncheon in DC (2-26-2011)

  The luncheon always brings out the stars of black history!

We saw Lonnie Bunch (founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture), Tuliza Fleming (NMAAHC curator Apollo exhibit) , John Fleming (former ASALH president/executive producer America I AM), Dr. Sharon Harley (National Humanities Center Fellow and chair emerita of the University of Maryland’s African American Studies Department), Ida Jones (president of the Association of Black Women Historians), NOVA history professor Joe Windham, Thomas Battle (former head of Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center), the ever energetic Sylvia Cyrus (ASALH executive director) and dozens more great friends.

Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s special adviser, brought greetings from the White House.

When Dr. Lerone Bennett, former top editor at Ebony, gave the keynote, I was reminded that his 1962 book, Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, was in our household when I was in elemetary school and the first black history book I ever read. My uncle, Walker Perry, was good friends with Jet’s photo librarian, Basil Phillips (who never missed an ASALH convention while he was alive and who always sent us the latest Johnson Publishing Company books.) Just the words “before the Mayflower” provided ammunition we could use in an era when we were told black people had made no contributions to America.

    Today, as Black History Month ends, I’m confident in saying that black history is integral to and inextricably linked to American history. As I heard someone say this month: “You can not understand George Washington, without understanding George Washington’s slaves.” Of course our history is much broader, much richer and much more complex than our ancestors’ slave status, but George Washington’s interaction with enslaved people shaped him and enriched his bottom line just as much as his decisions shaped them and America.

    What is indisputable is that America would not be the America we know today had it not been for the free labor of millions of people of African descent and their subsequent contributions in science, art, medicine, literature, business and any field we can name. In the words of Langston Hughes, “I, too, sing America.”

A'Lelia Bundles and Cheryl Brown Henderson of the Brown v. Board of Education family

This afternoon I had the good fortune to be invited to a luncheon hosted by my homegirl Janet Langhart Cohen in honor of Cheryl Brown Henderson, whose father, Reverend Oliver Brown, and sister Linda Brown, were the named plaintiffs in the landmark  Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.  Today Cheryl is president of the Brown Foundation for Equity, Excellence and Research, a Topeka, Kansas organization that her website says “serves as a living tribute to the attorneys, community organizers and plaintiffs and builds upon their work to ensure equal opportunity for all people.”

We all are beneficiaries of the courage of her family, the other plaintiffs and the attorneys who argued the case.

(And why are we standing in front of a photo of General Ulysses S. Grant? The luncheon was in the Grant Suite of Washington, DC’s Willard Hotel.)

After seeing my Facebook post about Cheryl Henderson, my good friend and fellow journalist Jack White sent me a link to a 1987 Time magazine piece he’d written about the Brown family’s second challenge to segregated public schools in Topeka. Click here for the original article.

Arthur McFarlane, Charlene Drew Jarvis, Zada Johnson, A'Lelia Bundles and Michelle Duster at the DuSable Museum

I’m marvelling at the fewer than six degrees of separation among my fellow panelists. Madam Walker knew and interacted with Du Bois  and Wells, who were founders of the NAACP. Dr. Charles Drew was a star doctoral student at Columbia University during the 1920s (after Walker’s death) and was well-known to the older generation like Wells and Du Bois.

We are ready to take this show on the road to universities, corporations and conferences!