A Grand Harlem Funeral
A’Lelia Walker, the only daughter of Madam C.J. Walker, helped her mother found the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company in Denver, Colorado in 1906. From 1908 to 1918, she played a major role in the growth of the Madam C.J. Walker business empire by managing the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania branch of the family’s hair-care company, overseeing Lelia College, the school of cosmetology and later the Walker College of Hair Culture in New York. A’Lelia also opened the New York office of the Madam C.J. Walker Company and ran its elite beauty salon. When Madam C. J. Walker died in 1919, A’Lelia became president of the company.
As part of her inheritance, A’Lelia Walker assumed control over the lavish estate, Villa Lewaro, on the Hudson River, north of New York City that had been built by Madam Walker as well as the Harlem townhouse on 136th Street near Lenox Avenue. Taking advantage of the success of the Walker Company in the early 1920s, A’Lelia entertained the rich, famous, and soon to be famous including African and European royalty, Harlem Renaissance artists, civil rights leaders, white and black bankers and businessmen. At almost six feet tall, A’Lelia Walker’s attire and signature turban became as legendary as her parties; she spared no expense on either.
In 1927 Walker converted a floor of the Harlem townhouse she owned into a salon and called it the “Dark Tower.” The salon was intended as a place to entertain and support young Harlem writers and artists. She opened Dark Tower to Renaissance figures such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas who gathered for art exhibits and poetry readings. The “Dark Tower” closed in October, 1928, but she wrote afterwards: “Having no talent or gift, but a love and keen appreciation for art, The Dark Tower was my contribution.”
On August 16, 1931, A’Lelia Walker died of a cerebral hemorrhage while attending a friend’s birthday party in Long Branch, New Jersey. She was forty-six years old.
A’Lelia Walker’s funeral was lavish and memorable. More than 11,000 people filed past her casket in a Harlem mortuary and 1,000 turned out for the invitation-only funeral where Mary McLeod Bethune delivered the eulogy and Rev. Adam Clayton Powell presided over the service. Langston Hughes read a poem written for the occasion: “So all who love laughter/And joy and light/Let your prayers be as roses/For this queen of the night.” She was interred in Woodlawn cemetery with her famous mother.
Read more at her great-granddaughter’s website.
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