Essence and Black Women
Essence was designed to encourage Black women, to make us believe in our selves and to see our beauty when others did not. It was designed to help us think deeply about our essence, who God delivered us to the planet to be. And then within that framework, it inspired us to shine our light!
That’s what it did for me!
So, having my first indie feature film, One Night in LA, be an Official Selection of the 2024 Essence Film Festival is all the validation I need. I wrote it for Black women and for women of color. Honestly, I wrote it for ALL women, regardless of the color of our skin, because I, truly, believe women are the foundation of the world! The main character is bi-racial and her mother is white. The movie is about getting to the essence of who Crystal Thorn truly is, all parts of herself, white and Black( she identifies as Black woman), a mother to Black sons, and a wife to a Black man!
It’s a poem and a love letter to women! It makes us think about what’s really important in our busy lives. Because I produced it on a slim budget, it doesn’t have bells and whistles to distract you from the Essence of the message, which is a divine call to women to think deeply about our journeys and what positive offering our lives should be.
It’s a critical time in history, and we need deep thinkers like no other time. The country has slid backwards and women’s right, the rights of the LGBTQ community, the rights of creatives to think independently and share freely are all threatened. The democracy is in peril!
We must all think! Think about what we can do to help America to turn itself around. Throw your energy and effort in the fight for democracy. I’m fighting with my pen and stories for my bi-racial grand babies. I don’t want them to have less freedoms than I did.
What will you fight for, what will you fight with — your words, an act of service, your fierce love of others — and when will you jump in the ring and box for Democracy.
One of my favorite authors is James Baldwin. One Night in LA has a James Baldwin flare because I originally wrote it as a play, honoring many of his sentiments and ideas. Not many people know this, but the beginning of it was my final in an African American Literature class while I was working on my MFA at the University of California as a Distinguished Dean’s Fellow ( I just have to throw that in:). I’m proud of returning to graduate school to get an MFA after raising my sons and dropping them off at college. I loved my Professor, a lesbian African American Literature scholar, and that’s why my main character is an African-American Literature Professor, a DEEP thinker. It was a play.
Thank you Essence for seeing the value in One Night in LA and thank you for seeing me as a writer.
I love Essence! And James Baldwin. And You reading this post!