00:00The work we do at Essence is not just a mission, but it's a mandate.
00:13My name is Asha Bandale, and it is my joy to be sitting here with Susan Taylor,
00:18whom I was lucky enough to waddle into her office and four and a half months pregnant,
00:25and you could not ask for a better caretaker. I've loved her for all of these years,
00:32all my years at Essence with you as a senior editor, and now as your senior advisor at National
00:37Care's mentoring movement. Thank you for taking a moment to sit with me, Susan.
00:41Can't let you go, Asha. Can't let you go.
00:45You know, I was thinking after everything that's happened in the last 12 months,
00:49what we most need is courage. I think about what Maya said, Dr. Maya, not Maya, but Dr. Maya.
00:54I can listen. She would correct you when she's here.
00:57That's right. That's right. But Dr. Maya, it was a phone call that you actually arranged for us to
01:02have, and when she really talked about to do anything well, you need courage. And I know that
01:08so much that you've created seems normal every day to us now, but there was a first,
01:14and that first began with you. What kind of courage did it take? When you started doing it in the
01:20spirit,
01:20what was the hardest to write and say?
01:23You know, I don't name it courage. It's service. And if you love the community and you're devoted
01:31to serving the community, you do and deliver what the community needs. And so it didn't take courage
01:37to write about spirituality in a magazine, because when I began writing in the spirit,
01:43there was no popular magazine in this nation that was writing about spirituality and the
01:47Holy Spirit. And no journalist inside of our community has ever asked me why. But so many
01:55outside of our community said, you must get, you know, a lot of blowback from people talking about
01:59God, talking about the creator, talking about the Holy Spirit. Never once in the, what, how many years?
02:0527 years I wrote, you know, in the spirit. I guess, you know, what pause, what, what, what made me
02:12pause
02:13was what was I going to write about? When I became the editor-in-chief of the magazine,
02:17I hadn't gone to college at that point. I subsequently went back, but I was following
02:21Marsha Ann Gillespie, a brilliant, brilliant writer. And I just said, be yourself, write about
02:28what you care about most and what you're most interested in investigating. And it was spirituality.
02:33So the column was named in the spirit. And my second editorial really talked about how I came
02:40to spirit, how my life fell apart. I thought I was having, tell that story.
02:46Well, you know, I thought I was having an anxiety attack and all week long, my heart was pounding
02:50fast. I was working at Essence for those Essence folks who are going to be listening to this and
02:54watching it know that I was making $300 a month. Right. And my rent was $368. So there was
03:03a lot of stress. I ended up at the hospital thinking it was a heart attack. The doctor
03:07said, it's an anxiety attack. And I left the hospital that day in New York City, walked
03:13north when I should have been walking south. And I heard three o'clock church service.
03:19That's what was on the marquee. I grew up Catholic and, you know, Catholics go to mass in the morning,
03:25it's done in an hour, you go home. Right.
03:27Well, I sat in the back of that sanctuary and I heard a Reverend Alfred Miller preach a sermon
03:33that changed my life. He actually shouted to the congregation, God is alive in you. God is alive
03:40in you. And short story, it's a much longer one. I woke up the next morning and I said,
03:47don't pull the covers over your head, doubting and fearing. God is alive in you. Take pause and
03:54listen. And that's what I did. I listened in. Spirit said, make a phone call, feel your divorce
03:59school of charm. I'm the beauty editor of Essence. Would you like me to come? Oh, we'd love to have
04:04you. And that one call increased my salary probably by 35% and really relieved me of a lot of
04:12pressure.
04:12And what I learned subsequently is not that just God, that God is alive in us, but we are alive
04:19as
04:20the Holy Spirit. God is alive as us. The entity that created us put an aspect of itself within us.
04:27And I still, I doubt, I fear, I lose faith and courage and all of that. When I forget, when
04:34we
04:34remember who we are and that we were created by an entity to thrive and to give and to love,
04:41it reduces the pressure. It just takes, it doesn't take courage. It takes passion. And I think purpose.
04:48Yes. That is so beautifully said. And I don't want to take, um, I probably do like a book of
04:53Susan
04:54Taylor quotes. Oh Lord. And one of my favorite ones, and you can play with me on this, uh, but
05:01I take
05:01very seriously is that we have to give ourselves to ourselves before we give ourselves to the world.
05:06I remember when you first taught me that you want to say a little bit more about that. You remember
05:11stuff that I don't remember. That's being young and fine. Listen, I, you have to give yourself to
05:16yourself before you give yourself away. And it's what we do, especially women. We get up and
05:21before even pausing and taking care of body, mind, spirit, what am I going to do today? Am I going
05:26to exercise? What am I going to eat? What thoughts am I going to hold? What is really important to
05:31this
05:31day? We just race through life. And at the end of the day, we're exhausted. We haven't spoken to
05:36people in ways that are integrity with who we are on the inside because we're rushing. And I think one
05:43of
05:43the most important articles I ever wrote for essence, this is long before I became the editor
05:47in chief, it was called quiet time. Quiet time is the key to everything that we need. If we would
05:55only pause and allow that divinity that rests within us by whatever name we call it, God, Allah,
06:02Jehovah, Yahweh, the divine intelligence that is at the core of who we are is always trying to impress
06:08us, to speak to us, to guide us. And when we lay back and listen, we allow it to have
06:14its way with us. So
06:15giving yourself to yourself before you give yourself away is being in the quiet with yourself and
06:21listening in. If there was one thing you did consistently as chief editor and now editor-in-chief
06:28emerita and as publications director that you would recommend that young editors always know to do. And, you know,
06:36maybe even people on both sides of the aisle, right? Because it's, there's a blend, right,
06:40between the church and state that was so separated for us when we were there, but they kind of go
06:46together now. What would you say to everybody who's working to produce essence is the one thing you
06:51must do to get a great story or to get a great magazine and a great product?
06:56Know who you're serving. Yes. And there should be that division between church and state. And state
07:05needs to stay out of the church. But the church needs to always be watchful of the state because
07:13the state is where the money comes from. And though we don't bow to our advertisers and sponsors, we have
07:20to know what displeases them. If it's something that the readers need, we have to find a way to deliver
07:26it. But it's so important that editors have independence and that they get to know the audience,
07:34that they get to know the, if it's at a festival or if it's a magazine or a newspaper, whatever
07:39it is,
07:39you have to know who you're serving. If it's a service publication, and that's very much what,
07:45you know, essence is, it's a service publication. And it's also one that creates a stage for black
07:51women to have their say, a place where black women get to know not just themselves, but one another,
07:57that we're not on the ledge alone. It's a place where things that are confounding us should be
08:04figured out. There's so much wisdom out there. And to have the opportunity to bring that wisdom
08:11to an audience that is hungering to know more about itself, more about how to serve self, how to serve
08:17community, how to move things forward. I think that's our major role. Know who you're serving
08:22and bow to that. Be faithful to the audience. Most essence readers are in the South, don't have a
08:31whole lot of money. That's mostly our audience. They skew a little bit older. And I think that it's
08:38important to remember that, you know, especially when you're sitting in New York and see all the,
08:43I remember when we were across the street from Condé Nast. And it can be hard to remember that this
08:48is who we are. That's why festival is so amazing, because it gives us our reader. It lets us see
08:55who we are serving. And I know that she went through a lot. This is what I'm hoping you were
09:05going to say.
09:06What about reader mail? How did that inform you? Oh, Lord. You know, people couldn't even believe it.
09:10But listen, anything the reader was writing, I was reading. Anybody you discover in that process?
09:16Iyanla. Iyanla Vanzant was a reader of essence. They wrote a very beautiful letter. And I said,
09:21oh, let's invite her in for a meeting. And she came. And the meeting went on and on. I said,
09:25let's order lunch. And we continued. And then we put her on a plane, I think the very next week,
09:30and sent her out to California to our beloved B.B. Moore Campbell, you know, the novelist who
09:35passed away. And out of that, her first national piece, she wasn't speaking really anywhere or
09:42writing. And she just began to fly. And we have held on to those, those wings of hers. She's amazing
09:51and still works beautifully with us. But yeah, read a mail. I spent a lot of time getting to know
09:55the
09:55reader and traveling and speaking and listening. People came to hear. But then I would make myself
10:01available for hours as people would line up, have something I want to tell you, let me know.
10:05That really informed the content of the magazine, what women were thinking, feeling and needing.
10:11It's a fine line, right? Because you're both working to be aspirational, but you've also got
10:17an ear to the ground. Because if you don't, you want to leave and give people something to look at
10:23and say, yes, my life can be better. I know I needed that. Most of us. But when you listen,
10:28you know. That's right. If you're listening to sadness or joy or what people are aspiring,
10:33then you figure out with a team of editors, how do we deliver this in a compelling way?
10:38That's going to engage the reader, inform her and help to move her forward. Even with men,
10:42you know, I took a lot, I took a lot of criticism. There was a lot of criticism when I
10:46decided
10:47that we were going to do a men's issue. Most of the editors didn't agree,
10:51but a brother came by my house one night and he said, I'm not dating black women anymore. And I
10:55said, rather than putting his behind out and being mad at him, hold your peace and listen.
11:01And I did. And I went to the magazine the next day and I said, we're going to do a
11:05men's issue.
11:06It became the biggest selling issue, the November issue. That's right.
11:10Another great issue is beauty at any age or January annuity. I miss that. I love,
11:15you know, and you're living proof of what we put in the pages. I want to segue into the work
11:21that
11:21you've been doing for the last 20 years, since you handed the reins over to another generation
11:28of editors at Essence. But I want to do that by reminding people what you used to say that moved
11:34me
11:35so when I was lucky enough to sit around the table with you. And you would say that the work
11:40we do at
11:40Essence is not just a mission, but it's a mandate. And tell me, what was our mandate to black women?
11:47Oh, gosh, that's it's to all of us. Because it's not just black women who were here to serve.
11:53We forget that we are the most privileged black people on this planet. We have more education,
12:01we have more resources, we have more opportunities, more choices. And along with that comes a huge
12:07responsibility. It's really an honor to be able to serve. And if you don't know your history,
12:11then you think your life is hard every day. Things we know can be difficult. And these are really very
12:18difficult times. But I am so glad that I am not on somebody's plantation, and it's not 1789,
12:25you know, that we can choose how we move forward, we can choose what we think we can choose the
12:32kind of
12:32work that we want to do, we can choose to go to school, we can choose to find another gig,
12:37be inventive, start your own business, we have choices that we must never forget and choose to
12:42leave. Right? And when in one way or another, plenty of people who don't have very much are moving all
12:48around and away from where they came. Right? That's the whole migration story. Right? I love that. And so
12:56thank you for leading us on this journey, because we're going to get our children, and we're going to serve
13:01our
13:01women, we're going to serve our families, and we're going to serve our community because that's the
13:05essence way. That's why we're here. It's why, it's why we were created. We were created to serve and
13:12that service begins with self. So thank you so much. I love you, Susan. I love you so much. Thank
13:18you.
