It was a time when black pride was strong, feminism was growing and large numbers of blacks were preparing to leave college campuses for careers that came in the wake of the civil rights movement.
But until Essence appeared at newsstands in May 1970, affirming images of black women largely were missing from mainstream women’s magazines.
“I remember buying it on the newsstand and thinking, `This is a great (magazine). I hope it comes out every month,’ and not being sure and thinking, `Oh, this won’t last,’ ” says Rita Fry, Cook County’s Public Defender, describing the first issue of Essence she saw.
Her wish was granted. Essence, a lifestyle magazine created for black women by four black men, has lasted 25 years and developed a monthly circulation of 1.2 million by chronicling black life and telling its readers who’s who and what’s new.
The magazine’s anniversary is being honored with the release of “Essence: 25 Years Celebrating Black Women” (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $35), a photo book with essays on the magazine and the notable women it has featured in its pages over the years.
“It was a labor of love,” says Patricia Hinds, editor of the book, who with her staff spent a year combing the magazine’s archives for material to include in the compilation.
In the book’s introduction, Susan Taylor, Essence’s editor-in-chief since 1981, tells how the magazine evolved from a 1968 gathering of black business people who met to discuss opportunities for corporate ventures.
Jonathan Blount, who at the time was a salesman for the New Jersey Bell Yellow Pages, had a godmother who suggested he start a magazine for black women; several others who attended the meeting liked the idea.
Ultimately Blount joined forces with three other men–Cecil Hollingsworth, Edward Lewis and Clarence O. Smith. The four refined their concept and began fundraising to get the magazine off the ground. Today, Lewis is Essence Communication’s CEO and Smith is the magazine’s president.
Essence Communications, an independent New York-based company, also publishes the magazine Income Opportunities. It has a licensing division that produces eyewear and clothing patterns; a book division, a direct-marketing division and an entertainment division.
The first and most militant issue had stories on women who had struggled to advance the issue of equality for blacks, including Shirley Chisholm, the first black U.S. congresswoman; and Kathleen Cleaver, who was married to and involved in politics with author Eldridge Cleaver.
Equally compelling was the look of the publication: It featured a beautiful black woman with an afro on the cover and women of many hues in ads inside.
It was like a black Cosmo, a provocative women’s lifestyle, fashion and beauty magazine that filled a niche untouched by Ebony’s family-oriented news and Jet’s entertainment stories.
The first months were tough as editors changed and the approach of the magazine underwent shaping.
Proud to be different
In 1971, Marcia Ann Gillespie was named editor. Describing her audience to Taylor, she says: “I wasn’t interested in what other women’s magazines did, because women’s magazines have been developed for a whole other kind of woman–one who had not come up through slavery, one who had’t had to work, always work, one who had not been independent as black women have been independent and on their own.”
Gillespie told Taylor she worked hard to include issues of cultural history as well as mind, body and spirit and to do it in a way that felt as personal for readers as a conversation.
Herschella Conyers, a defense attorney with the Mandel Legal Clinic at the University of Chicago, says she remembers thinking Essence was long overdue when she bought the first issue.
She says she wondered if the magazine would be able to be a mainstream publication with fashion coverage and remain true to the needs of black women at the same time.
“We didn’t want (a black Vogue),” Conyers says. “We didn’t want those types of issues and I don’t think we even wanted those types of clothes. We wanted what black women could wear, that they could afford to buy.”
Still, Conyers says she felt a mix of ambivalence and excitement about Essence.
“It was unclear to me as a young woman–and I don’t think I was alone in this–whether things like makeup and hair and clothes were really issues that any serious young woman would bother spending money on,” Conyers says. “The notion of makeup and hairstyles for black women really was revolutionary.”
Message of self respect
Essence’s self-respecting message that black women, black hair, black skin and black style were beautiful was unique and paved its way to success.
It showed black women of all shapes and sizes and presented readers with a realistic and inclusive vision of beauty. Conyers says the magazine’s success may have nudged other magazines into featuring black women as models inside and on covers.
“It has changed my life because it said that women of color have value and that we could be whatever we wanted to be,” Fry says. “You could see us in a magazine in all our various colors and shapes and sizes and even in articles; it seemed to be talking about things that were possible for women of color.”
Fry says she bought the anniversary book to see the photographs of women from the 1970s.
“You look at the women back in the early ’70s with the huge afros,” Fry says. “When I was wearing an afro . . . Angela Davis was my heroine but the larger white society did not celebrate her. It was a matter of pride and rebellion to be able to wear these huge afros and be like Angela Davis.”
Seeing pictures of Davis and of models with big ‘fros as a beauty statement was wonderful, Fry says.
“Suddenly whatever kind of hair you had, whatever color it was, whatever style it was, if you were a woman of color and you wanted to be different, it was OK,” Fry says. “That was important because so often we’d find ourselves forced into this image where we’re either the Sapphires of the world or the Aunt Jemimas of the world. Suddenly here was somebody saying you can be singers, dancers, lawyers, doctors, scientists and airplane pilots but you can also be teachers, waitresses and jockeys.”
Stories in recent issues have included an interview with singer Chaka Khan and a black woman’s view of the O.J. Simpson trial and its fallout written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson. Author Bebe Moore Campbell, author of “Brothers and Sisters,” also contributes stories.
Terez Zeigler, owner of the Essence VIP hair salon in Waukegan, which is not affiliated with the magazine, says she has enjoyed reading Essence for at least 10 years because it has shown black women and black life the way they are.
“It really looks at our needs and it discusses a lot of things we deal with in our everyday life,” Zeigler says.
She says she started reading the magazine when she saw it at her mother’s house.
Meeting special needs
Her mother, Lucille Mayfield of North Chicago, says she started getting Essence in the 1970s when she realized that another magazine she read had no articles written from a black perspective or advertisements targeted to blacks.
“I love Susan Taylor,” Mayfield says of Essence’s editor, who writes a monthly column. “(Essence) has articles that pertain to women over 40, 50 and 60 years old. It really hits a woman of any age. I encourage my husband and my sons to read it.”
Borris Powell, 37, of the North Side says he has read the magazine for five years largely because he loves Taylor’s column.
“Susan Taylor writes about taking the ordinary average day, the ordinary known situation, just anything you know about–like a family visit–and how to leave that with a spiritual experience,” Powell says. “She writes about spirituality in layman’s terms. It’s nothing mystical and it’s nothing you have to spend money to have.”
Powell says he grew up reading Ebony and Jet and admired Essence because it is among the few magazines where he could see people of color.
“They have men writing articles in Essence about men and that’s a leap,” he says. “And they deserve some credit for including positive stories and pictures on the cover of black men. We don’t get that in any other magazine.”
Taylor says she has kept the magazine competitive with other women’s magazines by redesigning it every couple of years.
“We have fewer fashion pages,” Taylor says. “As the magazine has grown and our lives have become ever more complex, we’ve had to eat into those fashion pages to try to deliver more information in those other areas that are important to our readers.”
Social issues, like AIDS, which Essence has written about more frequently than many other women’s magazines, and relationships of all kinds have been important to readers. The magazine soon will feature a column about programs that are developed to deal with social problems, with attention devoted to how organizers developed the program, Taylor says. In this way, readers in other cities can call them and develop similar programs.
“What we’re really trying to do is give black women the inspiration and the information that we need to live our lives with peace and joy,” Taylor says. “I read other women’s magazines but I know they’re not speaking to me about my hair and about my man and about raising my child. The poetry and fiction (in other magazines) is not in my voice and is not about my life.”
Fry says Essence has done much for giving young women role models and information about people in unusual careers that they, too, might consider.
“This magazine says it’s not only OK, it’s magnificent to be a black woman in America,” Fry says. “I’m happy to see it not only stuck around but it stuck around 25 years.”
