Fuzionz Magazine and TV Summer Issue 2013 | Page 10

National Cares Mentoring Movement

Susan L. Taylor is synonymous with Essence
magazine, the brand she built—as its fashion and
beauty editor, as editor-in-chief and editorial
director. For 27 years she authored of one of the
magazine’s most popular columns, In the Spirit. For
nearly three decades, as the driving force behind
one of the most celebrated Black-owned businesses
of our time, Susan Taylor is a legend in the
magazine publishing world.
She was the first and only African American
Woman to be recognized by the Magazine
Publishers of America with the Henry Johnson
Fisher Award—the industry's highest honor—and
the first to be inducted into the American Society
of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame. She is the
recipient of the NAACP President's Award for
visionary leadership and has honorary degrees from
more than a dozen colleges and universities.
A fourth-generation entrepreneur, Susan grew up in
Harlem working with her father in his women’s
clothing store. She founded her own cosmetics
company, a first for Black women, which led to the
beauty editor’s position at Essence. She is the
author of four books: In the Spirit: The
Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor; Lessons in
Living; Confirmation: The Spiritual Wisdom That
Has Shaped Our Lives, which she coauthored with
her husband, Khephra Burns; and her most recent,

All About Love, Favorite Selections from In the
Spirit on Living Fearlessly. She is a much soughtafter speaker, inspiring hope and encouraging us
to reclaim our lives and create sustainable
communities.

She is an avid supporter of a host of organizations
dedicated to moving the Black community forward,
but her passion and focus today is the National
Cares Mentoring Movement, a call to action, which
she founded in 2006 as Essence Cares. The Cares
mentoring movement is a massive campaign to
recruit one million able adults to help secure our
children who are in peril and losing ground. “Not
on our watch!” she says. “Our children are the
mothers and fathers of our tomorrows, and their
future is in our hands.” The goals of the Cares
movement are to increase high school graduation
rates among African American students, end the
violence in Black communities and the overincarceration of our young. “Creating safe, top-tier
schools in every underserved community in this
nation is the mandate—and it’s doable,” Taylor
says.
Susan is a cofounder of Future PAC, the first
national political action committee devoted to
providing a network of support and sources of
funding for progressive African American
women seeking federal and state-level political
offices. She is co-chair with Danny Glover of
Shared Interest, a capital campaign to raise money
to build housing in the rural areas of South Africa,
and serves on the boards of the Joint Center for
Political and Economic Studies and the National
Underground Railroad Freedom Center. She has
worked passionately to help restore the lives of
people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region
who were devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita.