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 and the nonfiction inspiration for “Self Made,” the fictional Netflix series starring Octavia Spencer. “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance,“ the first major biography of her great-grandmother, will be published in 2025 by Scribner.

She is the founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives and serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, Columbia Global Reports and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative. A former network television executive and Emmy Award winning producer at ABC News and NBC News, she is a former chair of the National Archives Foundation and a former vice chair of Columbia University’s board of trustees.