Research At The National Archives And Beyond!

Self Made is Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker. A’Lelia Bundles is the author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, the 2001 New York Times Notable Book about her entrepreneurial great-great-grandmother. Renamed Self Made for the 2020 edition, this biography is the inspiration for the four-part Netflix series starring Oscar winner Octavia Spencer that premiered on March 20.   Ms. Bundles is at work on her fifth book, The Joy Goddess of Harlem: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, about her great-grandmother whose parties, arts patronage and international travels helped define the era. A former network television news executive and producer at ABC News and NBC News, Ms. Bundles is a vice chairman of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees and chair emerita of the board of the National Archives Foundation. Photograph by Que Duong She is on the advisory boards of the March on Washington Film Festival, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvar