Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Alison Geskin talks with some of the most successful leaders from around the globe. She discovers what they're doing, why they're doing it, and what impact they've made.
I am so, so thrilled. Thrilled to have you today I'm gonna ask this question right out of the gate, Elia, so many people have had the privilege of introducing you as a journalist, as an author, as a historian, as a legacy keeper. So much more. I wanna ask you this. How would you introduce yourself?
Well, you really just said it.
Those are the things that are important to me and I'm, I feel fortunate that I come from a family that has a great story to tell. I feel fortunate that my parents encouraged me to follow my own path, which included writing and becoming a journalist. And now I just feel privileged to be able to tell that story to inspire others.
I love that. I love that. Is there a through line that connects all of the chapters of your life together? Like the newsroom, the books, the archives? Is there a through line that connects it all together?
It, it's really me as a little girl discovering that I love to write that I, that when I wrote something, I could create a mood, I could tell a story and it would have an impact.
And that was the, you know, like I guess some people. Early on, they realized they can sing and they can carry a tune. That was not me. But my real passion and gift, I think was the ability to tell stories.
Oh,
whether, you know, whether I was writing about my family or not, I would've been a journalist. But to be able to have this extra bonus of this great family story has really propelled me.
Oh, I, is there a part of your story that you wish people asked more often about?
Hmm. You know, so I think it's sort of, people are obviously most curious about Madam CJ Walker because she's the businesswoman, the pioneer, the millionaire, you know, all of those things. She had a big impact on a lot of people's lives.
But it really is, I'm so glad now to be able to tell Aleia Walker's story, to have her out there. Mm-hmm. Because she in, in real life and in the telling has been overshadowed. So I'm glad that we're learning about her and, you know, and I guess if there's something that I, that I'd like to tell that I don't, that's not sort of top of mind for other people, it's just what great parents I had, you know?
tell me a core memory of your mom and of your dad, and then what they as a couple taught you. Mm mm So they, you know, they were just, just really lovely people. Both really accomplished. My mother was. Vice President of the Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company. When I was growing up, though, the company had really was not a major player in that space by the late fifties and early sixties, but she was also very involved in politics, in raising money for political candidates.
She was elected to the school board, so she was a real force and then just a great party giver. She knew was she really entertained well every year. During the weekend of the Indianapolis 500, she would give a big party. And I remember her being a great hostess as well as just a really good human being, but also with a great sense of humor.
And she did not suffer fools, you know, so she's good. She was multidimensional. Mm-hmm. My dad was president of a company, summit Laboratories, another black haircare company, but also was very involved in civic activities. And then my mom died, in early 1976, and I had, my youngest brother had just turned 11.
Hmm. And so my dad had to do some pivoting and he. Became, the founding CEO of an organization called Center for Leadership Development, which has now had three generations of young people in Indianapolis. It's the original person, then their child, and then their grandchild who learned leadership, abilities.
And now this organization gives more than a million dollars in scholarships. So it was interesting to watch my dad make that pivot and really model that for me. you know, but we had great fun on vacations. They, they, and both of them really encouraged me to do the thing that I love. And so I'm, I'm just forever grateful for that.
Nobody said, you need to do this. You need to go in this direction. It's, what is it that you love?
Oh, I love that. I love that. What's one value that you carry as a little piece of you inside of your heart that represents your, your, your mom and your dad?
Leadership and speak engagement, being involved, giving back those, that was very key to what they modeled for me, and what I, you know, really carry with me.
I love that. I love that. So before you were the keeper of your family story, which is incredible and we're gonna get into that. You were telling stories of others. What was it like working in places like NBC News or a BC news?
It was a wonderful ride and I, you know, I started in. At NBC in 1976, after I graduated from Columbia's School of Journalism, I worked there for 13 and a half years and then I switched to A B, C.
But that for me was kind of the, a golden era of television news. CNN was sort of, came online a little, you know, a little later, like in the, in the early eighties. So it was just three networks. And so to be at one of those three networks with the big name anchors and a big budget to go cover stories, whether it was a hurricane or a grain elevator explosion, or you know, just something that was interesting, a human interest story, you had lots of resources that allowed you to do that with lots of really smart people.
and I think a lot of integrity. Yeah. I was really fortunate in journalism school to have Fred friendly. As one of my professors, Fred Friendly is most well known as the George Clooney character. And good night and good luck. Oh, you're kidding. Right? So though Fred did not look anything like George Clooney, but that's who George was, that's who Fred was.
He was, uh, Edward r Murrow's producer. So I learned from him and I learned some of the really important core mm-hmm. Tenets of being a good journalist and telling a story properly, having the facts, not sharing rumors, not telling lies. And so I feel fortunate that very important during that, during that period of time.
Mm-hmm. And it was, and, and just to be around so many smart. Colleagues. I, I feel like that was a workplace where everybody was smart and everybody, almost everybody, because you never have everybody, but almost everybody was really trying, trying to do a good job and, and to be of service to the public.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, it sounds like you learned a lot of really good leadership markers from that time. What was it like navigating like high pressure, high stake environments? Because it was the heyday, I think, of news. It was everything that, we aspire to. It was that trusted source. Mm-hmm. What was it like in those high environments?
Well, it was an, it was an interesting time to be there because when I started at NBC in the summer of 1976, women were just really being moving into those places. And we know sort of that early seventies as women were graduating from college and women were starting to go to med school, law school, business school in greater numbers, these doors were opening up.
And when I started at NBC, I started in a management training program because the networks realized that they needed more women's voices. But the truth is they had been sued by women because. For, you know, from the beginning of radio and television, when young women were hired, they were hired as secretaries and researchers and young men were hired as desk assistants, the entry level job and assistant or associate producers.
Mm-hmm.
So 10 years later, the women would still be secretaries and researchers helping to build the careers of those young men who now were. Producers and senior producers and executive producers and executives of the network. Mm-hmm. So women sued, women sued Newsweek, they sued some of the local stations, and I was a recipient of those doors opening.
so for the first time there were women anchors because people had said for years, oh, women's women don't have authoritative voices, so they can't anchor the news, they can't be reporters, they can't cover war zones. Women can't, don't have the ability to manage people, so they need to stay researchers.
So I came through that door and it, it has been amazing to me to watch what's happened over these last 50 years. and exciting to see how women have navigated this space.
Hmm. I, I bet you go from having absolutely no access to having total immersion. Mm-hmm. Incredible.
And, you know, and I was very lucky to have some great mentors.
Um,
so, you know, while it was new to have women and new to have African Americans and Latinos and Asians in these spaces, which had really, you know, we had been excluded from. and there were some people who, you know, who gave you grief, who didn't really want you there. But I was fortunate that. I had enough people who were my champions.
Um, one person in particular, art Lord was the bureau chief in Houston. Art was a New Yorker who had, you know, who was now working in the NBC's Bureau and the correspondent George Lewis, who became, you know, many people still remember who used to watch television still re you know, remember George a, a producer, Donald Critchfield and a great camera crew.
The two cameramen were kind of wisened, you know, veterans, and they just, they said, you know what? We'll, if you don't act like you know everything, we will teach you. And, and they did. They were very kind to me. And so I had a, an opportunity, which is what any young person wants. You have the opportunity to shine, but you also have the opportunity to make mistakes without them being fatal.
Yes, you have the, isn't that an incredible gift to give someone else? Is the space in which to make mistakes and not be judged for it, but be rewarded for it because the lessons in the learning,
right? Yeah. I re I remember one night we were in, you know, in Houston and you always had this late night feed, what they called the feed.
And so if you would cover the story during the day, you needed to on the telephone lines, that's, this is before internet, all of that. You had to put the little, you had to edit the story and then feed, quote unquote feed it up the line to New York. So it could be on the 11 o'clock news, it could be sent out.
And I was working with a correspondent and we missed the feed. And oh my God, I thought my life was over, not just my career, I thought my life was over. And you know, my colleague said, okay, that was a mistake. You know, everybody's been there. What you do tomorrow is the test.
Mm.
You get back on the horse.
I wish more people created space and had the grace for others to do so.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
And I never
made that mistake again. You know, that was, that was important to be able to have that happen.
I bet. I bet. I bet. You know, at some point you chose to step into your family's legacy, but also to tell it really truthfully, not sort of romantically as you've said. So what made you decide that it needed to be the truth, and what made you decide that the time was now, at that time?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I, I had, when I was in graduate school at Columbia, um, in the fall of 1975, my advisor Phyllis Garland. At that point, the only black woman on the faculty, because again, we are in that moment in the mid seventies where these doors are opening up, people are being hired who had been excluded before.
And Phil and I sat down to talk about the topic for my master's paper. And you know, the ma, your master's paper's a big deal. You're supposed to, you know, really have some important topic. And I gave her some cliche trophy topics and at the end of the conversation she said, your name is Elia. Do you have any connection to Mme.
Walker and Elia Walker? Wow. And I'm sure Phil knew the answer. She'd been a reporter for Jen and Ebony. Her mother had been editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, a well-known black newspaper. But I was not talking about that. I didn't think anybody else was interested in my family necessarily. And when I said to her, that's my, that's my family.
And she said, well, that's what you're going to write about. So it was still validating for me that there was something there. And really, this was, again, ni early, you know, early mid 1970s. Very few books by or about black women for sure were being published. And so I didn't think anybody wanted to hear this story, but Phil put me on that path, which ended up being a parallel path where I was working as a producer and doing that career piece.
But on the side, on the holidays, on the weekends, I would interview people or I would do the research, mind you, before the internet, before digitization. So I would have to like go to Chicago to see the microfilm of the Chicago defender. But it was, I really did have this parallel, life where I was building my skills and network television news as a storyteller.
And I think ultimately in service of being able to tell this family story.
Oh yeah. And
when you asked me about, you know, telling the truth, so yes. This is my, you know, my journalism self. When that same year, when I was in graduate school in New York, I went to Indianapolis where I had grown up, you know, to spend time with my family.
And my mom was in the hospital, um, with lung cancer. And I, you know, at 23, well, the idea of terminal, it really did not compute with me. And so we, I was telling her about this paper I was writing, and she was excited that I was doing this. I think she'd always known that I was supposed to tell this family story, though she'd not pressured me about it.
And I said, you know, mommy, I'm starting to find that, you know, Madam Walker's not perfect, you know? I don't know. you know, I think it's, maybe she'd had a divorce or something, but I, whatever. It's something that sort of, I'm like, oh, how do I tell this story? And I said, what do I do about that? And she said, tell the truth, baby.
Mm-hmm. It's all right to tell the truth. I hear from so many people who say they feel that they have to keep family secrets. They can't tell stories, they can't really tell the truth. But I think that was a great gift. It was one of my last conversations with my mom, and it kind of freed me to go where the story was.
Oh, mm mm having lost my own mother. Do you ever, um, find little bits of moments of time where you feel your mom's proudness shining through? Whether it be a a, a ray of sunshine, uh, a person, a thing? Do you feel how proud she is of you
all the time? Oh, I love that all the time. You know, certainly with this book, you know that I know, you know, she's, the, the book is dedicated to my mom, my dad, and my grandparents, because each of them played a role.
Yeah, my, my mom shines through all the time, and I live in Washington, dc She went to Howard University, and so some of her friends from Howard who are now all in their nineties. Um, but they, when I first moved here, they really, took me under their wing. They welcomed me. They made me feel like a daughter.
And so I've had the, you know, sort of the warmth of those relationships for all of these years.
Oh. So blessed. But I think it's probably a good, uh, hallmark marker of how you were brought up and what was important. It sounds like you embody your mom's values and make them I, I hope
so. I hope so.
in many ways that, you know, just the, um. The idea. She was so, she was so smart. You know what I didn't get from her? I, she got, she had the science and math gene, and I didn't get that. She majored in history. What Gene did you get? Business. You know,
but I, so I didn't get that part. But, um, you know, the idea, she always put other people at ease. Mm-hmm. She was able to talk to everybody. And, and, and it's not like, it's not like she was perfect and it's not like she didn't criticize some things mm-hmm. That she called a thing when she saw a thing. but I, I feel like that's, I, I have that gift.
You know, again, I can be, you know, crazy sometimes too.
We all can. And there's fun
in that too. And there's sometimes you have to do that, but it is so, you know, I mean, I do remember her saying to me, it's easier to smile than to frown. And I have found myself, I've just noticed this, you know, sort of within the last few weeks that when there's an opportunity to say something nice to somebody, because we're all experiencing, you know, it's kind of chaos at the moment.
And that if you can, you know, make somebody else feel better and then you will get that back. I had a really interesting experience on the train on Sunday, you know, conduct. I'm on the train a lot between New York and DC conductors come through and, you know, mostly they just. Check your ticket and they move on and they might grumble or whatever.
There was a woman, it was a black woman conductor, and she at the, she came into the car and she said, I like to say hello to each car. I like to make sure that you are doing fine. I like to see that everything is going well and with each person she said, hello, how are you? I had never seen that happen. Wow.
And you know, that just kind of put people at ease, but also those who want to be cranky, it gave them no opportunity to be cranky. And I thought, boy, what an amazing, the psychology of this is brilliant.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I wonder if she sees it as psychology as we see it, but if she sees it just as being true to herself and wants to spread joy and goodness and to others.
Yeah. I think, I think that is probably true. but it's, it's sort of like, okay, this is where I'm coming from.
Mm-hmm. And
I am hoping that you will mm-hmm. Be the same. Mm-hmm. Do unto others as you would've others do unto you. The golden rule still works. Yeah. So for most people, yes.
I've always anchored, and I teach this and I talk about it everywhere.
It's never about what you do, it's about how you make people feel.
Absolutely.
So important. So important. We have to take that so seriously and we have to move with intention. 'cause you never know how someone's going to interpret your energy.
Right.
You have to be very intentional with that. Mm-hmm.
You do,
you've lived many beautiful versions of yourself, reporter, producer, author, truth teller.
What is one season or one chapter that looked really good on paper but really didn't feel good on the inside?
Hmm. Such a perfect question. Hmm. So, you know, it is, I have had this amazing career in network, television news, and I've had a lot of opportunities and great relationships. But you know, Allison, you never get through 30 years doing anything without some bumps.
And so I have had a couple of situations where I've had people who were my, you know, bosses or you know, the managers, and for whom I could do nothing. Right. Ah. and it, you know, it, um, it's like have maybe two or three, you know, situations like that. But each time that happened, I would talk with my dad, who would give me advice.
But one of the things that came out of those situations where I felt like I was being thwarted, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't get out of the box. That's when I really began to lean into some of my volunteer activities.
Mm-hmm. And I
became involved with my college and with my graduate school in alumni activities.
Those situations allowed me to continue to develop some leadership, roles and to learn some things to, to network with people, to develop, to build some relationships that continue to be important in my life. So it was like there, you know, I may, I may get find a door closed here, but I see a door open there.
And I became, I was a trustee at Radcliffe College. I was involved with the Harvard Alumni Association on the nominating committee. I became, you know, involved in sort of reworking the alumni association at Columbia's J School. And then I became a trustee at Columbia. Incredible. So, and it was, that was kind of my, you know, side hustle in a way.
Mm-hmm. But I
got great fulfillment in part because I was being pushed out of something else.
You know, and I, there's another thing that goes along with this. There was one particular person when I was at ABC who, again, I just, no matter what I did, we, we did not get along. But I, you know, I'm still trying to do my job and I was so frustrated, and I you, what you don't know is you said you don't know how other people see you, what other people are observing.
And I had one of the, you know, the best moments of my career, the best opportunities. My bureau chief in Washington, I was working for World News Tonight, which is based in New York. And I was one of the Washington producers, but I was not getting along with the person who was the executive producer, but my bureau chief in Washington.
Robin Spro just, you know, I wasn't working directly for her, but she was watching me and at one point she invited me to her office, we, and said, let's go to lunch. And she said, you know, I've really been watching what you're doing and, there is an opening for a deputy bureau chief. Are you interested? So I was like, I've gone from purgatory and worse to this amazing opportunity.
But, you know, I was just trying to keep my head down and do my job. And it, you know, it was, it paid off.
It did, it did. When you look back, what did you once believe about leadership that you now know to be true? Hmm.
That empowering other people. Is what you should be doing.
Um, can we unpack that a, can we unpack that a little bit?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the reason why I ask that is because I think a lot of words have lost its meaning.
True.
And I think that empowerment has, is, has been so bandied about it, it kind of has lost its meaning. So when you say empowerment, what, what does that mean to you? How does that show up? Uh, yeah. It's just such a,
yeah, helping people find their gifts, helping them find opportunities where they can shine.
Showing them something that they didn't realize about themselves, you know? And in the same way that Robin did for me, and she saw something, I wasn't pushing for that. I wasn't saying, oh, I'm, I need you to promote me. She was seeing something in myself. Not that you shouldn't push, I'm not saying that, but how you, Give people opportunities and that, and, and that, you know, this, this sort of bully boss who demands things and throws things. And, you know, I had, I saw some of those people. I didn't wanna be that person. 'cause you learn as much from the bad bosses as you do from the good ones. But I have seen the fruits of that philosophy of empowering other people, giving people opportunities, showing them something they may not have seen.
And within the last six months, especially as I've been traveling around with the book, I, there are a number of people who I've run into, who've come to my book signings or I've done interviews and they said, you know, you. Somebody I felt like I could come to your office and talk to you. You're somebody who helped open a door for me.
And that is true of three people, who are coming to mind. Tony Perkins, who is an anchor on the NBC affiliate C and I happen to be in a position where I helped him have an interview with a, B, C and that, and he became the, weatherman for Good Morning America. And now he's gone on to do other things in a very little way.
Jeff Bennett, who is the anchor for PBS NewsHour, was a young intern at a BC. and I was, you know, I was an executive at that point, and he, I, he interviewed me not too long ago. He's such a wonderful journalist. But he said, you know, he said, when I got there, people said, oh, you've gotta meet Elia Bundles.
You gotta go by her office. And he said, you know, that conversation was. Important to him. And then I spoke at, a company in New York a couple of weeks ago and I, yeah, I mean, I say young woman 'cause she was young at the time, so was I. But she came and she said, I, when I was at a b, C, you ran a mentoring program and we would meet once a month and you helped me, you know, we moved from different one, one job to the other.
And I was really intent upon giving some of those young people who might be stuck in one job or at one show the chance to rotate to another one. And she said, that opened a door for me that I otherwise would not have been open. So I cherish those stories because I, in some small way, I might have helped somebody see something different.
I wonder how long, how long that value or that marker goes in your, in your family history. Because the image that I just had in mind, what a full circle moment for an intern to become super successful because of part and parcel of himself and all of the other things, but you, and then to full circle, close the loop and interview you.
And then I go back to the story you told about your dad with the leadership development and how you and, and how they have had generations of people to go through that. Mm-hmm.
But, you know, I had, there's something beautiful in that. I'm telling you that's why, that's why you were so good at this. But that, you know, I, I think that really is very much a family trait.
Yes. Great. You know, my dad really, I mean, when I, if I go somewhere and someone says, oh, your last name is bundles. Do you know Henry Bundles? You know, and I'm like, I'm, that's my dad. And they're like, well, I was part of a Center for Leadership Development. And there was a phrase that he had them say at the beginning of every meeting about being on time.
It was. On time. In time every time except ahead of time, which is better time. And if you were one of those people who went through that program, you never forget that. And they are on time. So he really did develop now several generations of leaders. you know, certainly my and my mother. this was, I mean, her gift, the, we have a very good family friend who had got maybe, and this is, you know, years and years ago when I was a kid who'd made, she had done a couple of years of college but hadn't graduated from college.
And my mother. Pressed her, you've gotta finish college, you've gotta finish college. And she figured out ways to help facilitate that. And that family friend, became a teacher and then became a principal and worked with a lot of kids who otherwise would've not been treated well. So, so, and, and even, you know, my, because my mom worked all the time, we had babysitters and housekeepers and my mother would make them get their GEDI mean, she just, she wanted, she wanted to, she wanted people to sort of.
You know, whatever realization that they needed. So yes, that is very much a part of my family. And obviously with Mme. Walker. Yes, she was talk about empowering people. She was helping women become economically independent, get a credential that had, let them have a business, get education, educate their children, buy homes.
So, you know, I had never thought of it in that way, but I think you were right. That is very much a part of my family legacy.
Well, when you think about the challenges that, you know, in the seventies, as you say, in the eighties, the, even in the 2020 fives we're in, well, there we
are.
But you think about that, you know, Mme.
Walker, her lifespan was what, 1880? No, 1860 something to 1919. 1920. Mm-hmm.
1867 to 1919. So just 51 years.
You think about that and what that was like, we didn't have cars back then. Mm-hmm. All of the, the modern luxuries. That in itself is incredible. Right? Oh, oh. What do you wish more leaders said out loud?
That everything is not easy. That they've made mistakes. Mm-hmm. Yes. And that perfect is a fallacy. There's no such as perfect and Yes. Yes. And you can't agree with everything because you can't even agree with yourself half the time. Right? Oh my goodness. Oh, tell us a little bit about, um, oh, there's just somewhere, somewhere I wanna go.
I wanna touch on the joy goddess, but I also wanna touch on, uh, a little bit of the Hollywood lever. The, that lever of the book that turned into, oh, Octavia Spencer, right? Oh, a net. Oh, Netflix. Oh,
yes. So, you know, listen, Octavia Spencer was great there. It was a four-part series on Netflix that was a Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers production, called Self-Made, that aired in March of 2020, right when we were, the pandemic shutdown was happening. So a lot of people watched that first weekend 'cause they couldn't go anywhere else. But Octavia was great. I just feel like every time she came on the screen, she embodied Mme.
Walker and I think on a personal level. I heard her tell stories about how Mme. Walker was someone who was, you know, you set up as an example in her home. Mm-hmm. So she really appreciated Madam Walker's legacy. lots of people worked really hard on that from the makeup people to the hair people, to the set designers, to the caterers, all of that.
But I think many people know I ultimately was not thrilled with the overall production, because I was hoping for something like Hidden Figures and I feel like there was a little bit too much Real Housewives of Atlanta. so the showrunners, the managers and the head writer I think were kind of leaning into the Hollywood cliches and, you know, the centerpiece of the story was two women.
At each other's throats. And they made up this kind of, yeah, the drama. And they made up this, that, it was about Madam Walker's skin color. The other woman, they turned, the other woman in real life, Annie Malone, Madam Walker's competitor. I mean, they were not friends, but they, they were competitors, but both were really substantial.
They both created jobs for women. you know, they both were philanthropists, but in the film they, to create a villain, they made Annie Malone into like a drug addict. I mean, it was just, and so it was just like too much, too much overload of that kind of thing. And there were some other things. You know, I, I don't wanna go on and on about that, but I, I do know that that many people watched it.
And, and people tell me, oh, you know, it's, uh, it, it's, it was inspirational. I could see her perseverance and that's what they keyed in on. And I am glad that many people were inspired. But I will say that. There are times when people will say, well, now what about this and that. I'm like, you know, that didn't really happen and I feel like I'm having to kind of, you know, say, here's what happened.
Please read my book.
Tell the Truth. Oh,
it's, it's an interesting, the Hollywood thing is, it is kind of a double edged sword, you know, you know, when you have a drama and it's not a documentary that there's gonna be literary license. I mean, that's just, that comes with the territory, that there are characters who are conflated. There's situations that didn't really happen and so I'm, I get that.
I mean, I worked in TV news for too long not to understand how that works, but what I believe is that when you have a an important historical figure, you wanna kind of stay to the core of who they are. And I'm really fortunate that I do have friends. Who work in Hollywood, who work in theater, who work on Broadway, who want me to see me have a production that is closer to what I love.
In fact, I just met with a friend who just left my house a few minutes ago and we are starting to do some outlines. So I thi this will happen. It may not happen. You know, Hollywood stuff, all of this stuff takes years. But I do know that I feel I have faith that I will get another crack at this. Oh, I certainly if, if anybody, I certainly believe in your faith.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about your new book, the Joy Goddess. First of all, joy Goddess. Tell us about that name. I know I, you know, I couldn't resist. So, Langston Hughes, the poet called Aleia Walker, my great-grandmother, the joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s in his memoir, the Big C that came out in the 1940s.
So she'd been dead for about a decade and he's kind of recounting his life and his travels. And he wrote about her parties, he wrote about being at, at events at her home, and that was the name that he gave her. And he did that because of these great parties, because people always had a good time. But also just her personality, how welcoming she was.
I guess that's also part, part of the family legacy. But she loved to host people and she loved to bring people together who ordinarily wouldn't have been in the same room. So, you know, she grew up very poor in St. Louis. Her mother was a washer woman, until she was a teenager and until, Mme. Walker was 38, so she didn't have a lot growing up, but they always had music.
Ma Mme. Walker, Sarah Breed love washer, women in the choir in their church. Ragtime was being born in St. Louis in the 1890s when she was growing up. And for a while they lived across the alley from Tom Turin's, Rosebud Cafe, where Scott Joplin played. And then in the public schools, the schools were segregated and many of the principals, the black principals had gone to Oberlin where they had a great music curriculum.
But German musicians ran the music curriculum for the overall. Citywide school. So the kids were hearing rag time on the street music in the, in the church, in the choir, but they were learning German leader for their spring festivals. So she was infused with this. And I think that love of culture that both women had, even when they were poor, translated into their lives when they now had wealth.
So all of their homes had music rooms, had pianos and harps and victrolas. And so Elia Walker's love of culture is in part what brought people to her. Yeah. So Harlem. In the 19 teens and 1920s is becoming the black, cultural and political mecca because they have a business, they have wealth. Everybody knows them.
People come to their events, she hosts events. And then as the twenties, as the culture, the music, the theater, the, all of these things really ramp up during the twenties. She's the one who has the homes where people can congregate.
What an
incredible life.
What Not only your great-great grandmother's, your grandmother's, your mother's, yours, incredible.
What do you hope that people learn about joy, about leadership, about cultural courage? Mm-hmm. From that era. 'cause there's so much to learn.
There's so much to learn,
so much to learn. And I don't think we've done an adequate enough, a job of, looking at our past and learning from our past. Hmm. What do you think people will, what do you hope that people will, um, learn about that?
Well, you, when you say joy and goddess, I mean those are, you know, two really big words. Um, that goddess is the sort of, because she was regal and, you know, because as one person said, she didn't just walk into a room, she swept into a room, and that people were drawn to her like bees to flowers. But that idea of joy and what that means, you know, I think some people can, you could sort of write that off as, oh, that's just frivolous.
It's just having a good time. But joy is necessary and joy is necessary, especially in a time when there's a lot of chaos around. Like, you have to fortify yourself if, you know, if people are losing jobs or people are going hungry or people are struggling, you know, the, how do you sort of, you know, tap into that reservoir of faith, of joy of.
Resilience. And that's really for me, what the joy represents. And while we think of, you know, we think of the Harlem Renaissance in 1920s, the jazz age as the cotton club and rent parties. Yes. And, you know, sort of having a good time. But it was in some ways a response to some difficult times that people were having.
America had just come out of World War I, there had been things like the Tulsa Massacre. There was a lot of, you know, a lot of turmoil that people were experiencing. But when they got to Harlem and when they were at Elia Walker's parties, they were free to create, free to, you know, sort of overcome some of those difficult times.
And out of that difficulty, out of that pain comes joy because we're like, we're not gonna be beaten down by it. We're going to thrive.
The ultimate metaphor of a Phoenix. Mm-hmm. Yes. Oh, fantastic. You know, when you think about the future for women, for storytellers, for leaders, what feels the most urgent to you?
Hmm.
You know, we, we really are at a moment where I hope people are taking notes about what they are feeling. there's always, I think, a great flowering of creativity, whether it's dance, music, theater, acting art, that comes from emotional challenges. so I, you know, I know that right now it, it for me, sometimes it feels like, oh, am I doing enough?
What is it? What more could I be doing? What could I be saying? What kind of impact should I be making? And. I just think that we each have to do our own work. You know, my work is writing, my work is telling stories. My work is having the opportunity to be out here talking about my book, but also talking about the ancestors.
And how the ancestors survived. How the ancestors, as we say, made a way out of no way to encourage people not to be hopeless. Yes. You
know, you have a lifeline, of generations before you that have created sparks. I'm just gonna call it that. Sparks, I can see them everywhere. I can, I can visualize your parents.
I can visualize your dad and, you know, I, I can just see that spark. That spark. What do you hope that your work continues to spark after you?
One, one of the things that I. Love about what I do is that I let people know that telling your family story is important. You know, yes, I have these two famous, ancestors, but I also have a lot of other family members who, for me are heroes and heroines.
And I try to encourage other people to tell those stories and it's, you know, whether it is saying it, you know, if your grandchild is your grandchild, every time your grandchild FaceTimes you, which is probably every night at dinner for, for a lot of people, have that child ask you one question about your childhood every night.
have them. So, because sometimes you'll, you know, a grandparent will tell a grandchild a story that they won't tell their own children. And if you tape that at the end of three months, you have some, you have a children's book, you have a story, you have something, but you also have begun to develop that intergenerational connection.
And on a, you know, that's on a small scale, that's on a, what can you do, how can you get the next generation interested? My grandfather is part of the reason that I love history, because he had great stories and he, he saved papers and he knew his grandparents' stories and all of those things. So that was an important touchstone for me.
on a bigger level of, you know, sort of people writing books, I'm really involved with an organization called Biographers International. Hmm. And we, that is, um, has, there's an annual convention every year, and it's everybody from Pulitzer Prize winners like Kai Bird and Tamara Payne and David Levering Lewis.
And so there's that, you know, set of luminaries. And then first time biographers, bestselling biographers. Wanna be biographers and we all come together, we're all doing this research. Sometimes these books take a decade or two decades, but I've really leaned into my involvement and there's a, a group that, we had a convention, a separate convention in Montgomery, Alabama in March that was focused on black biography.
80 people came, we had great, you know, told great stories. We went to Brian Stevenson's, um, equal Justice Institute and his sculpture garden, and just really communed with that history and with, with the ancestors. And out of that, uh, conference, a smaller group, meets once a month now on a round table to talk about, African American biographies.
And there are other, you know, other groups within BIO that talk about women's biographies and military biographies. So, you know, different people are doing, doing different things, but I've been recruiting. For that group. And it's just, I feel like I'm a magnet to people who are wanna write their family stories or wanna write about somebody and they're not quite sure where to go.
And I just, I feel like that's part of my job now is to, is to mentor people and encourage them.
There you go. There's another spark.
There's another spark.
Oh, there's another spark. Ready for a lightning round.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Ready? Ready, ready. One word that you think describes leadership today
Depends on who the leader is.
The leaders. The leaders I like are courageous. The leaders who give me anxiety are bullies. Yes. Yes. Yes. And isn't it interesting that, uh, nobody gets a hall pass in that Startup scaleup enterprise for-profit, non-for-profit, political, there's the two sliding scales. Yes, there is. And you know, and there can sometimes there's a little bit of both in some, but in you know, some people are, that scale is tipping.
We have to help them tip it right back. We have to help them find some balance. Okay. This one might be a, this one might be challenging for you. That one was challenging. They're just gonna get it better. You ready for this one? A book or a story that has changed your life?
I would say the first book that I remember changing my life, the Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois.
Oh, it's a small book. He wrote it I think in 1903. I read it when I was a senior in high school, and I was really trying to understand Race in America, and Du Bois was my intellectual hero for a long time because he was so eloquent about describing America and describing the position of African Americans in this country.
Oh, and that was in high school? That was in high school. And, you know, and so, I mean, for context, I, I know this is a lightning, right? So I, I'm turning this not into lightning.
No, but we're sparking after the lightning, so this is great.
But, so for context, I went to really excellent public high schools in the suburbs of Indianapolis.
Washington Township started in first grade. My mother was president of PTA in elementary school. I was a really good student. I was a student leader. I worked for the school newspaper. That's how I learned to be a journalist. I was on student council, so I was really super, super involved. But the schools were large and great public schools, but predominantly white.
So when I started first grade, there were like 12 black kids in my school, and ultimately there were more. And then when I was in high school, a really big public school with I think like 3,200 students, three, you know, three grades. So, and it was maybe four or 5% black. Mm-hmm. But I was very involved in everything and my, I was elected to vice president of student council my sophomore year to serve during my junior year.
And the election was on April 4th, 1968, the same day that Martin Luther King was assassinated. And that was an opportunity to try to bring people together. But it also did kind of bring out the worst in a few parents who were not happy about me being elected. And so during that next year, I kind of experienced a little pushback that I had never experienced before.
And then I ran for President of student Council the next year, and I was booed during my speech and I lost by a few votes. Interestingly, the principal of the school who was not really a fan of mine, his son ran for vice president of student council, even though he hadn't really been involved in student leadership.
So I was feeling, as we say, some kind of way mm-hmm. About what was going on. Mm-hmm. And I was really trying to understand, you know, where that blowback had come from. And so when I read The Souls of Black Folk. It helped me understand, you know, both intellectualize and understand where that strain of mm-hmm.
American history was.
Yeah. Not accept, but understand. But understand,
yeah. And, and, and understand that that was not everybody. Yes. But understand where that came from.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. One piece of advice that you'd give your younger self
learn a foreign language, become fluent in, in a foreign language.
We had, I, I, I was, I did prince just well enough in high school that I tested out in for college and I didn't have to take it, but my dad had told me, you know, you really, you should become fluent in a foreign language. He wasn't, but he just said that would open some doors. And I, because I tested out, I didn't wanna get up and go to the 7:00 AM lab in college, and I really wish I had become fluent.
Oh,
you still have lots of
time. I still have time, but college and my college roommate. Yeah. grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Studied Russian in high school. When she got to college, she decided she wanted to learn. Chinese became fluent in Chinese. She's still speaking Chinese and she's also done an immersion in Spanish and she's done Arabic, so she's, you know, I vicariously living through her.
I love that. Okay. One song that always lifts your spirits.
Oh, this is Harold Melvin and the Blue notes Wake Up everybody. Oh, I got it right there. Wake up everybody. No more Sleeping in Bed. It's a song from, I think 1970. And it's just a song about committing yourself to helping build your community to being, you know, to making sure that everybody has.
Equal rights is treat it well. Wake up everybody.
Wake up, everybody. Oh, well this, that's my
walk-on song. When people ask me, what's your walk-on song? It's my walk-on song. Wake up everybody.
Oh, I love this. I love this. What would be, as we finish this, what would be one thing that you would want to impart to, our listeners about life, about journey, about resilience, about finding joy and knowing that joy isn't, a frivolous word, that joy is birthed through the challenges, and we have to go through those challenges in order to find that joy.
What's one thing that you would wish upon the world?
You know, I wish that people would volunteer, lean into the things that they love. I mean, I am on a number of advisory boards. I'm at the point now where. I don't wanna be the boss anymore. I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be the leader, the chair, the president.
I, I've had that opportunity and I've enjoyed it and I, you know, benefited from it. And I hope I gave something, but now I'm kind of in that phase of life where I'm on advisory councils and advisory boards because I do want to continue to the degree that I have some wisdom to offer something. But I, for me, it's really important that we all use the gifts, use the talents, use the experiences that we had to try to lift other people up to try to help other people.
You know, give your advice. If your advice, if people wanna take your advice, fine, but you know, you, it's not, it's not life and death. It's like I'm offering it. I have some experience. I hope I have some wisdom, and here it is.
Yeah. I love that. I love that. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I am so appreciative.
I'm honored. I'm grateful I'm leaving. Inspired, no, they always say that, uh, you never know who you touch and so, but today I get to tell you, you've sparked something inside of me, so thank you.
So what, what are you, what are you ready to do next?
I really wanna take that spark about joy, about seeing, seeing things for what it is and choosing to see the goodness in it.
That's what I think I'm gonna do.
Mm-hmm.
That's my spark. That's your spark. And
it is a choice inside of it's a choice.
I'm gonna take that spark that you gave me today. I'm gonna put it right inside of here. 'cause you're right, it is a choice and I think that's a brilliant reminder. That it is a choice.
And we have each and every single one of us have that choice. And look at the choices that your family, your generations have chosen to make. And the result of that is living, breathing. The, the, the embodiment of everything that they've ever imparted, everything they probably ever wished and hoped for is breathing.
That's what we all hope
that we are, we are our ancestors dreams. And what a privilege and a joy to speak with you. Thank you. I'm so glad that you reached out.
Thank you.