August 2023
Courtesy OWN
OWN’s Time Of Essence first episode of the five-part docuseries, with the magazine’s early origins, starting within the Seventies by 4 Black men—Ed Lewis, Cecil Hollingsworth, Clarence Smith and Jonathan Blount—who intended to create a magazine catered to Black women, something unprecedented at a time where most girls targeted editorials were geared towards a white gaze.
The magazine was founded within the upheaval of the previous decade, which included the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, in addition to the thick of the Vietnam War and the Black Power Movement. The Black community on the time needed hope, and ESSENCE was birthed.
To really launch the publication, the foursome needed funding, and intended to boost $1,500,000. A Black bank...
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As to critics, it appears to be my fate to disappoint my theological friends by not being Christian enough, while I’m too Christian for Harold Bloom’s blessing. So be it. [i]
The mature and well-balanced man, standing firmly with each feet on the earth, who has never been blamed and broken and half-blinded by the scandal of life, is such the existentially godless man. [ii]
I. In Place of an Introduction….
After 491 pages, the reader involves the ultimate two words in John Updike’s magisterial Within the Fantastic thing about the Lilies: “the youngsters.” The words are stated without emphasis or misdirection, except from the high ground of grief: “the youngsters,” those holy innocents born into the bad recent days of what appears...
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