- 6/25/2025
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
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 of 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,
00:50what 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
01:01for us to have, and when she really talked about to do anything well, you need courage.
01:07And I know that so much that you've created seems normal every day to us now,
01:12but there was a first, and that first began with you. What kind of courage did it take?
01:19When you started doing it in the spirit, what was the hardest to write and say?
01:22You 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 Holy Spirit.
01:48And no journalist inside of our community has ever asked me why. But so many outside of our community
01:56said, you must get, you know, a lot of blowback from people talking about God, talking about the
02:01creator, talking about the Holy Spirit. Never once in the, what, how many years? 27 years I wrote,
02:07you know, in the spirit. I guess, you know, what paused, what made me pause was, what was I going to write
02:14about? When I became the editor in chief of the magazine, I hadn't gone to college at that point.
02:19I subsequently went back, but I was following Marsha Ann Gillespie, a brilliant, brilliant writer.
02:26And I just said, be yourself, write about what you care about most and what you're most interested
02:31in investigating. And it was spirituality. So the column was named in the spirit. And my second
02:37editorial really talked about how I came to spirit, how my life fell apart. I thought I was having,
02:44tell that story. Well, you know, I thought I was having an anxiety attack and all week long,
02:49my heart was pounding fast. I was working at Essence for those Essence folks who are going to be
02:53listening to this and watching it know that I was making $300 a month and my rent was $368. So there
03:03was a lot of stress. I ended up at the hospital thinking it was a heart attack. The doctor said
03:08it's an anxiety attack. And I left the hospital that day in New York City, walked North when I
03:14should have been walking South. And I heard three o'clock church service. That's what was on the
03:20marquee. I grew up Catholic and, you know, Catholics go to mass in the morning. It's done in an hour. You
03:26go home. Right. And I sat in the back of that sanctuary and I heard a Reverend Alfred Miller
03:31preach a sermon that changed my life. He actually shouted to the congregation,
03:37God is alive in you. God is alive in you. And short story. It's a much longer one. I woke up the
03:46next morning and I said, don't pull the covers over your head, doubting and fearing. God is alive in
03:52you. Take pause and listen. And that's what I did. I listened in. Spirit said, make a phone call,
03:58feel your divorce, school of charm. I'm the beauty editor of Essence. Would you like me to come? Oh,
04:03we'd love to have you. And that one call increased my salary probably by 35 percent and really relieved
04:11me of a lot of pressure. And what I learned subsequently is not that just God, that God is
04:16alive in us, but we are alive as the Holy Spirit. God is alive as us. The entity that created us
04:25put an aspect of itself within us. And I still, I doubt, I fear, I lose faith and courage and all of
04:32that. When I forget, when we remember who we are and that we were created by an entity to thrive and
04:39to give and to love, it reduces the pressure. It just takes, it doesn't take courage. It takes passion.
04:46And I think purpose. That is so beautifully said. And I don't want to take, um, I could probably do
04:53like a book of Susan Taylor quotes. Oh Lord. And one of my favorite ones, and you can play with me on
04:59this, uh, but I take very seriously is that we have to give ourselves to ourselves before we give
05:05ourselves to the world. I remember when you first taught me that you want to say a little bit more
05:10about that. You remember stuff that I don't remember. That's being young and fine. Listen,
05:14you have to give yourself to yourself before you give yourself away. And it's what we do,
05:19especially women. We get up and before even pausing and taking care of body, mind, spirit,
05:25what am I going to do today? Am I going to exercise? What am I going to eat? What thoughts
05:29am I going to hold? What is really important to this day? We just race through life. And at the end
05:34of the day, we're exhausted. We haven't spoken to people in ways that are integrity with who we are
05:40on the inside because we're rushing. And I think one of the most important articles I ever wrote
05:45for Essence, this is long before I became the editor-in-chief, it was called quiet time. Quiet
05:50time is the key to everything that we need. If we would only pause and allow that divinity that
05:59rests within us by whatever name we call it, God, Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, the divine intelligence that is
06:05at the core of who we are, it's always trying to impress us, to speak to us, to guide us.
06:11And when we lay back and listen, we allow it to have its way with us. So giving yourself to yourself
06:17before you give yourself away is being in the quiet with yourself and listening in.
06:23If there was one thing you did consistently as chief editor and now editor-in-chief emerita and
06:29as 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 there's a blend, right, between
06:41the church and state that was so separated for us when we were there, but they kind of go together now.
06:47What would you say to everybody who's working to produce Essence is the one thing you must do
06:52to get a great story or to get a great magazine and a great product?
06:57Know who you're serving.
06:58Yes.
06:59And there should be that division between church and state.
07:04And state needs to stay out of the church, but the church needs to always be watchful
07:12of the state because the state is where the money comes from.
07:15And though we don't bow to our advertisers and sponsors, we have to know what displeases them.
07:22If it's something that the readers need, we have to find a way to deliver it.
07:27But it's so important that editors have independence and that they get to know the audience, that they
07:34get to know the, if it's at a festival or if it's a magazine or a newspaper, whatever it 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
07:50women 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,
08:17how to serve community, how to move things forward. I think that's our major role. Know who you're
08:21serving and bow to that. Be faithful to the audience. Most Essence readers are in the South,
08:29don't have a whole lot of money. That's mostly our audience. They skew a little bit older.
08:37And I think that it's important to remember that, you know, especially when you're sitting in New York
08:41and you see all the, I remember when we were across the street from Condé Nast and it can be hard to
08:47remember that this is who we are. That's why festival is so amazing because it gives us our reader. It lets us
08:53see who we are serving. And I know that you went through a lot. This is what I was hoping you were
09:05going to say. What about reader mail? How did that inform you? Oh, Lord. You know, people couldn't
09:10even believe it. But listen, anything the reader was writing, I was reading. Anybody you discover in
09:14that process? Iyanla. Iyanla Vanzant was a reader of Essence. I wrote a very beautiful letter and I
09:21said, oh, 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 passed
09:36away. And out of that, her first national piece, she wasn't speaking really anywhere or writing.
09:43And she just began to fly. And we have held on to those, those wings of hers. She's amazing and
09:51still works beautifully with us. But yeah, reader mail, I spent a lot of time getting to know the
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 of criticism. There was a lot of criticism when I decided
10:47that we were going to do a men's issue. Most of the editors didn't agree. But a brother came by my
10:52house one night and he said, I'm not dating black women anymore. And I said, rather than putting his
10:56behind out and being mad at him, hold your peace and listen. And I did. And I went to the magazine
11:04the next day and I said, we're going to do a men's issue. It became the biggest selling issue,
11:07the November issue. That's right. Another great issue is beauty at any age, our January annuity.
11:13I miss that. I love, you know, and you're living proof of what we put in the pages. I want to
11:19segue into the work that you've been doing for the last 20 years since you handed the reins over
11:26to another generation of editors at Essence. But I want to do that by reminding people what you used
11:33to say that moved me so when I was lucky enough to sit around the table with you. And you would say
11:39that the work we do at Essence is not just a mission, but it's a mandate. And tell me, what is
11:45it was our mandate to black women? Oh, gosh, that's it's to all of us. Because it's not just black
11:51women who were here to serve. We forget that we are the most privileged black people on this planet.
12:00We have more education. We have more resources. We have more opportunities, more choices.
12:05And along with that comes a huge responsibility. It's really an honor to be able to serve. And if you
12:10don't know your history, then you think your life is hard every day. Things we know can be difficult.
12:17And these are really very difficult times. But I am so glad that I am not on somebody's plantation and
12:23it's not 1789. You know that we can choose how we move forward. We can choose what we think. We can
12:31choose the kind of work that we want to do. We can choose to go to school. We can choose to find another
12:36gig. Be inventive. Start your own business. We have choices that we must never forget.
12:41You can choose to leave. Right? In one way or another. Plenty of people who don't have very much
12:47are moving all around and away from where they came. Right? That's the whole migration story. Right?
12:53I love that. And so thank you for leading us on this journey because we're going to get our children
13:00and we're going to serve our women. We're going to serve our families and we're going to serve our
13:04community because that's the essence way. That's why we're here. That's the care's way.
13:08It's why. It's why we were created. Yes. We were created to serve and that service begins with
13:13self. So thank you so much. I love you, Susan. Thank you. I love you so much. Thank you.
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