{"id":16669,"date":"2025-07-26T19:46:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=16669"},"modified":"2025-07-26T19:46:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:46:43","slug":"joy-goddess-aleila-walker-and-the-harlem-renaissance-by-alelia-bundles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/26\/joy-goddess-aleila-walker-and-the-harlem-renaissance-by-alelia-bundles\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy Goddess: A\u2019Leila Walker and the Harlem Renaissance by A\u2019Lelia Bundles"},"content":{"rendered":"

c.2025, Scribner\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>
\n$29.99\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>
\n364 pages<\/em><\/p>\n

By Terri Schlichenmeyer<\/em>
\nThe Truth Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

Mama said.<\/p>\n

Mama said to be nice to others. Stand up for yourself, she said. You can do whatever you put your mind to. Stay out of trouble. Take care of yourself and those you love. Mama said a lot of things that shaped your life, and in the new book Joy Goddess<\/em> by A\u2019Lelia Bundles,<\/strong> Mama left a huge legacy.<\/p>\n

She remembered a time before, and a time after.<\/p>\n

In the before, Lelia Walker and her mother had little-to-nothing. Lelia\u2019s father had died when she was very young, and it was up to her mother, Sarah, to put food on the table and a roof over their heads with her hard work. There was simply no room for extras.<\/p>\n

In the after \u2013 after Sarah had become Madame C.J. Walker, head of a beauty empire that catered to Black women \u2013 there was money, mansions, and a certain kind of fame. There was still hard work, too, but Lelia embraced it because she was proud of her mother\u2019s acumen \u2013 maybe more so, in fact, after Madame made young Lelia a \u201cfull partner\u201d with the responsibility to run some of the farther-flung accounts.<\/p>\n

It was true that mother and daughter didn\u2019t always see eye-to-eye. Because she\u2019d worked away from Madame for years, Lelia felt emboldened to speak her mind but Madame often shut her down. Lelia wanted to choose her own husband, but Madame let her feelings about the beau be known. They argued fiercely, then acted like there was never any problem. They loved one another, says Bundles, but they were \u201c\u2019fire and ice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lelia, Bundles says, sought her mother\u2019s opinion on all matters, but she didn\u2019t often heed her mother\u2019s words. Madame didn\u2019t like that but as the years passed, she gave more and more of the business up, confident that Lelia (later, A\u2019Lelia) would take care of things \u2013 and she was, overseas, as her mother\u2019s health began to fail\u2026<\/p>\n

Filled with lush word-painted images of opulence and wealth and a sometimes-reverential tone, Joy Goddess<\/em> is a biography that covers a lot of territory: because author A\u2019Lelia Bundles is A\u2019Lelia Walker\u2019s great-granddaughter, it\u2019s part family history, as well as Black history. It\u2019s a business biography, too, in a large way. And it\u2019s a love story, pure and simple, one that will appeal to any headstrong mother-daughter pair.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that last part that features most strongly and builds to break hearts, even though readers are never unaware of what\u2019s to come. Bundles is honest about how the Walker women changed surrounding lives \u2013 Madame had \u201cadopted\u201d a daughter with mixed outcome \u2013 and how their beauty empire positively affected Black business and culture for decades but she seems to push racism aside somewhat in the telling here. Instead, Madame and A\u2019Lelia\u2019s accomplishments and the world they lived in take front-and-center, and you\u2019ll appreciate that.<\/p>\n

This is a book for readers who want a wide-reaching biography with hints of inspiration. It\u2019ll make a great book club book or mother-and-daughter tale to share. Read Joy Goddess<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mama would approve.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

c.2025, Scribner\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 $29.99\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 364 pages By Terri Schlichenmeyer The Truth Contributor Mama said. Mama said to be nice to others. Stand up for yourself, she said. You can do whatever you put your mind to. Stay out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[20],"class_list":["post-16669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16671,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16669\/revisions\/16671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16669"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=16669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}