On Saturday, Chief Content & Creative Officer MoAnA Luu kicked off the first day of the Wealth & Power segment of this year’s 2020 ESSENCE Festival of Culture.
“If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you’re going!” she said, before taking viewers through a dazzling visual timeline featuring some of ESSENCE’s most memorable cover women (and even a few men).
From the magazine’s iconic first issue, in May of 1970, featuring cover star Barbara Cheeseborough to the modern-day times, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic after perusing through so many bygone eras and cultural milestones.
Though, it wasn’t all about the past.
In May 2020, ESSENCE celebrated its 50th anniversary, with cover star Naomi Campbell. This print issue marked another publishing first for the magazine, it was created 100 percent digitally—even the cover was shot by Campbell with her own iPhone due to the pandemic.
“It was a very special honor and unusual experience for me to be able to shoot and style my own cover for ESSENCE’s 50th anniversary issue,” Campbell said about the experience. “While it was a sad reminder for me of all the people in media and production who are not able to work due to the coronavirus, it also brought me hope and encouragement to know that our people and our infrastructures are resilient.”
Now, as ESSENCE delivers its first-ever virtual ESSENCE Festival, it’s clear the event’s “unstoppable” theme is more than just a four-syllable word. It’s a reflection on what it means to power through against the odds, against a pandemic the future and unshakable spirit of Black ingenuity.
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The post A Trip Down Memory Lane: ESSENCE’s Most Memorable Cover Moments appeared first on Essence.
