Any number even worried that no longer black-owned, there might just be a high price to pay. When venerable, 'mainstream' Time acquired 49 percent of Essence Communications in 2000, and adsorbed the remainder by 2005, some felt foreboding. A successor to the In ter-State Tattler, Ebony, Jet, Our World, Copper, Hue and other more general magazines for African-Americans, Essence rapidly assumed the role of America's foremost journal for black women. Watched over and nurtured during three years of gestation by Parks, provided with a forthright African-American derived aesthetic and outlook, Essence focused on uplift, enhancement and empowerment. Under the superlative editorial direction of the acclaimed Gordon Parks, photographer, film-maker, writer, Essence Magazine debuted in 1970. King's March on Washington forty three, since Essence was started. It's a full century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation. Jane Wright Jones, Ophelia DeVore or Rose Morgan, would the idea that “Black is Beautiful” have ever become reality? It’s hard to see how. In an abjectly racist America, without the advent of extraordinary women like Madam C.
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