‘Joy Goddess’ tells the story of the original ‘It Girl’ of Harlem — Madam C.J. Walker’s daughter, A’Lelia Walker

Madam C.J. Walker’s daughter, A’Lelia Walker, steps into the spotlight in a new biography by A’Lelia Bundles, that celebrates her glamor, influence, and resistance during the Harlem Renaissance.

When you envision icons from the Harlem Renaissance, a vision of famous poets, jazz musicians, and bodacious actresses in banana skirts may dance across your mind.

But journalist A’Lelia Bundles wants you to make room for the ‘Joy Goddess’ of Harlem—a woman who could make a VIP party come together at the drop of a hat with a few phone calls.

Her name was A’Lelia Walker, and she was the only child of the first Black American woman millionaire and hair care inventor, Madam C.J. Walker, given the nickname “Joy Goddess” by her friend Langston Hughes.

“One of the society columnists at the time said that people were drawn to her like bees to honey,” Bundles said in an interview with TheGrio. “If she was having a party, she’d get on the phone and she’d say ‘Darling I’m having a party tonight and it wouldn’t be the same without you, absolutely not.’ People would just come, and of course it wasn’t just a plus one. It was a plus two, three, and four because everybody wanted to be there.”

The life of A’Lelia Walker, heiress to a Black beauty empire, has been explored in history books previously—but none as intimately and thoughtfully as the new book Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance.

That’s because it’s written by Bundles, who is A’Lelia Walker’s great-granddaughter and a family historian who also unpacked the legacy of Madame C.J. Walker in her bestselling book On Her Own Ground, which served as the basis for the Netflix series Self Made.

Bundles says she wanted the world to know about A’Lelia Walker’s own spectacular journey—from humble beginnings growing up poor prior to her mother’s fame to becoming a socialite who supported civil rights, the arts, and activism in Harlem and beyond.

“A’Lelia Walker was very intentional about how she presented herself to the world, and she would definitely be on TikTok and Instagram now,” Bundles tells TheGrio, as she reflects on the many photos that exist of her.

“A’Lelia Walker knew that she represented a certain glamour, that she represented the aspirations that a lot of Black people had for their lives,” Bundles explains. “Just consider that Madam Walker was the first person in her family born free in 1867. A’Lelia Walker was born in 1885, and so she’s part of that first generation fully out of slavery. But we know that our lives as Black people in America often still felt like slavery for 90% of the people who lived in the rural South. A’Lelia Walker, as this first Black celebrity heiress was giving people some vision of what it could be to be truly free.”

Walker owned three homes, including one known as “The Dark Tower,” where she hosted parties and famous talents like Zora Neal Hurston. She also traveled around the world, including trips to Egypt, which she documented heavily through photos included in the pages of ‘Joy Goddess’. Bundles says that her great-great-grandmother’s international travel likely opened her eyes further to the importance of resistance in America.

“She knew that there was another world other than the Jim Crow, other than deep racism that was going on,” Bundles tells TheGrio. “While we really revel in the celebration of the arts and culture and theater and music and poetry of the the Harlem Renaissance, we were doing that to express ourselves, but also [it] was a response to the racism of Woodrow Wilson’s administration, where federal offices had been integrated and he segregated them.”

“That kind of racism was rampant. When Black men came back from World War I, they had been brave and valiant in the war, but they came back expecting that they had fought to save America for democracy, and they were lynched. They were told to go back into their place. And so we are at that point in American history, really trying to assert ourselves, and we are responding to the racism. Not unlike today.”

A’Lelia Walker, as this first Black celebrity heiress was giving people some vision of what it could be to be truly free.”– A’Lelia Bundles

Bundles takes deep pride in her role of preserving family history, but also being part of a legacy of women who charted their own path. While her mother played a role in the haircare business started by Madam C.J. Walker, Bundles went on to graduate from Harvard-Radcliffe College and pursued working in media, becoming a producer at ABC and writing books, with full support from her family.

“Our stories are so important,” Bundles tells TheGrio. “Especially at this moment when there are forces that would really like to erase our stories or keep us from doing them, we’re not going to stop doing it. It’s just the ancestors are insisting.”

Watch the full interview with A’Lelia Bundles, author of Joy Goddess, above, and learn more about the book at her website.