The Moral Of Essence Fest: Underestimate Black Women At Your Own Peril

Marc H. Morial 
President and CEO
National Urban League
  

If there is a moral to the story of the Essence Festival, it is this: underestimate Black women at your own peril.

In 1995, many in New Orleans did underestimate. They had a narrow, reductive view of Black women. Essence magazine and its sophisticated and cultivated readership simply were not within their scope of perception.

Thirty years later, the Essence Festival is as much a New Orleans institution as Mardi Gras, gumbo, and jazz, and a primary driver of the local economy. It is the nation’s premiere celebration of the creativity and power of Black women.

Though a young bachelor in my first term as mayor, as the son and brother of dynamic, accomplished women I could never underestimate Black women. It is among my proudest achievements that I grasped the potential of that first Essence Festival in 1995, a one-night stand that flourished into a long and happy marriage.

I reflected on the folly of underestimating Black women two weeks ago as I marched in protest outside the office of Bill Ackman, who spearheaded the racist and sexist campaign to discredit and hound Harvard President Claudine Gay from office.  I reflected on that folly as the National Urban League joined the legal fight to defend the Fearless Fund from relentless attacks by longtime racial justice opponent Edward Blum.  I reflect on that folly every single day as right-wing extremists struggle to keep the gates of authority and influence locked tight against Black women and other marginalized people.

In Roger Ross Williams’ 2023 documentary film Stamped from the Beginning, based upon the Ibram X. Kendi book, prominent Black women recount their “Phillis Wheatley moment.”  Before publication of her “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral” the enslaved young poet Wheatley was “examined” by “the most respectable Characters in Boston,” forcing her to prove that the poems really were her own work. The book included an attestation that Wheatley “has been examined by some of the best Judges, and is thought qualified to write them.”

Some white men in 2024 are no less intimidated by the brilliance and accomplishments of Black women that they were 250 years ago. Their cowardice and bitter resentment is on display every time they disparage a successful Black woman as a “DEI” hire. It is on display every time they rush to file a lawsuit to block even a sliver of prosperity from falling into hands that are not their own. It also makes me prouder than ever that my administration helped to create a forum like the Essence Festival to celebrate them.

Racism cost the U.S. economy at least $16 trillion over 20 years.  Misogyny cost the global economy at least $7 trillion every single year. But for the vision of some in my administration and the business community, such narrow-mindedness could have cost New Orleans a billion or more over the last three decades. What price are extremists like Ackman and Blum willing to pay to protect their privilege?  

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