Source: WENN

Susan L. Taylor

CALLING: Writer/editor/journalist

WHY WE’RE SALUTING HER: 

Susan L. Taylor put black beauty and brains on the map in the national media as editor-in-chief of Essence magazine and the mastermind behind the brand we know and love today.

Taylor’s entry into the media world started at Essence. She became a freelancer for the magazine in 1970, the same year it was founded, after a line of customized cosmetics and natural skin-care products she developed came to the attention of it’s founding editors. At the time, Taylor was a single, divorced mother without a college degree, but that didn’t stop the magazine from promoting her to beauty editor a year later, or from becoming editor-in-chief of the magazine in 1981. During the ’80s, Taylor attended night school at Fordham, and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree from the university.

While serving as EIC from 1981-2000, Taylor wrote a monthly inspirational column, “In the Spirit,” which became one of the glossy’s most popular features, and led to the publishing of three volumes of select pieces from over the years as part of Essence Books, which she started in the ’90s. Taylor was also executive producer and host of Essence, a syndicated television interview program that was broadcast on more than 50 stations from 1984-1988. Taylor also functioned as executive producer of the annually televised Essence Awards and the annual Essence Music Festival. These triumphs led to Taylor being named vice-president of Essence magazine in 1986 and senior vice-president in 1993.

In 2000, Taylor was promoted to publications director of Essence and remained in that position until she left the magazine in 2008. Because of her contributions to the magazine world, Taylor was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame in 2002 .In 1999, she also became the first African American woman to receive The Henry Johnson Fisher Award, an award which recognizes people who have dedicated their lives to the magazine business and helped the industry thrive and expand, or through their editorial policies, address social, political, economic or lifestyle issues. For establishing a lane for a magazine for and by black women to flourish, we salute Susan L. Taylor.

Click here to meet all of our salutes.

From journalist to entrepreneur to counselor, Candace Kelley is a woman of many hats. Black Star News observes that it’s her drive and hair that has inspired so many people.

“My parents planted the seed that education was the key, because at the end of the day, if you have the same degree as the next person, you would probably fair very well,” Kelley told Black Star News. A graduate of Howard University and Seton Hall Law School, Kelley was born in a family of three girls and two artistic, educator parents.

After graduating from law school she joined Court TV and has since been involved in the media industry. She is the hostess of the weekly thirty minute radio show “League of the Extraordinary” on 89.7 WGLS-FM. True to its name, the show has had some extraordinary guests on the air. Kelley has had the opportunity to interview stars such as Mary J. Blige and DMX as well as Lexington Steele, a Wall Street broker turned Adult Videos star and Bishop Fred Rubin, a former Orthodox Jew who married an African American woman and now leads a predominately black Pentecostal church.

“We are historically religious people, and when I came across the story of this Jewish man who…I don’t know if inspiring is the word, but it certainly for me was worth looking at in more depth because it really spoke to the opposite of what we are used to hearing,” Kelley said to Black Star News of Bishop Fred Rubin. The story of Bishop Rubin and his wife has been commemorated in a documentary which is currently in post-production.

In addition to the radio station, Kelley is also actively involved in various television recording, shooting, editing and documentary projects. What makes Kelley’s media success inspiring to so many black women is that she’s done it all while sporting her beautiful natural hair on TV.

So many women saw Kelley on TV and contacted her to inquire about her hair that she started Curl Prep Natural Hair Solutions to showcase her product that elongates natural hair. Kelley has been natural all her life except for two years, and has been making her homemade products back in the 80’s before the surge of natural hair products became available on the market. Although it started as simply an informational website, two Whole Foods stores in New Jersey are now carrying her products with two more stores expecting to debut her products soon.

“Once you’re in the system, other stores start to pick you up – it sort of happens in progression,” she said.

But Kelley doesn’t stop with her entertainment or hair product credits. She and her friends are in the midst of putting together a seminar to help guide people in developing their ideas. Among the seminar benefits, they plan to offer copyright procedure assistance and free websites.

T.J. Holmes is leaving CNN at the end of the year after spending five years as a newsroom anchor on the network.

Holmes began his career as a producer for KSNF in Joplin, MS, and worked at local stations in Little Rock, AR, and San Jose, CA, before joining CNN in 2006.  Earlier this year, he was honored as one of The Root 100. A source at CNN says the weekend anchor already has a new gig lined up, but there’s no official word yet on where he’s going.

What black journalist would you like to see take Holmes’ place on CNN?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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(Huffington Post) – Despite the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics heating up the talk around the league is still LeBron James. Does James deserve the amount of attention he’s getting? After all, he’s the most prized free agent in NBA history right? Are there other stories about James that are bigger than where he’ll play next season? Yes.

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By Tarice L.S. Gray

In the past few years, Roland S. Martin has emerged as political pundit, celebrated media personality and civic leader. He is a CNN Senior analyst, program host of TV One’s “Washington Watch with Roland Martin” as well as network commentator, syndicated columnist and author of three books: “Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives of Faith”, “Speak, Brother! A Black Man’s View of America” and “The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin”.

The award winning journalist no doubt maintains a busy schedule, juggling a bustling career and preparing for an even brighter future. Recently he took a moment to speak to us about the national media, and his blossoming role in it.

Congratulations on your show Washington Watch with Roland Martin. It’s a political watchdog show, is it not?

To some degree. We speak to issues that are of importance African-Americans. Our goal is to feature African-Americans in the administration, in Congress, experts, political journalists, political consultants, things along those lines. We’re also broad. So for instance on a recent show we had Charlie Wilson talking about prostate cancer, but also talking about his career. Kirk Whalum was on the show talking about what he was doing with education with the Stax Museum. So we try to definitely mix it up, but we certainly represent the perspective of African-Americans and want to present that in everything that we do.

But your niche is politics?

I say it’s the primary. There are three distinct areas that I tend to focus on: politics is one, and I would say faith issues are second and social/cultural issues third.

Black politicians have had it rough in the past couple of years. Why do think that it’s important to have a journalist of color interviewing and commenting on these stories and other issues relevant to people of color?

I think first and foremost you need journalists of color speaking to issues whether they are black politicians or not. The fact of the matter is that we vote. We are involved in the process and therefore our voices deserve to be heard. When you read Cynthia Tucker [of the Atlanta Journal Constitution], Dewayne Wickham [of USA Today], we are presenting points of view that others may very well ignore.

I remember right before the inauguration there was a meeting of various columnists; Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe was there, Dewayne Wickham was there and I was there, we were the only three, and I think Eugene Robinson was at this one as well. One of us raised the point of HBCUs. The reality is that it would not have come up if we were not in the room. So I think that is important. But also I think we talk about what happens with black politicians. I mean a lot of us have unique perspectives because we have been covering them versus other folks may have just heard about them so they can only speak to the issues on periphery. So I think it’s important again for the folks who have been there to be able to comment on the issues taking place.

You had an opportunity to interview President Barack Obama and you also put out a book. How did your interview evolve into a book?

I decided to do the book because one, it was really a compilation of the election coverage. There were all the columns and blog items and things along those lines that I actually wrote during the campaign and so it allows for you to track it from day one up through the inauguration. And we included my interviews with him as well as Michelle Obama during the campaign. Then we got a number of different pages of photos as well, and so it really was a compilation. That’s why we refer to it ‘as originally reported by Roland S. Martin.’  From day one, I wanted to do second volume of my first book “Brother Speak! A Black Man’s View of America”. Once we realized [we had enough] pieces for this book, we decided to go ahead put this out.