Take a Lesson, 2nd Edition

Introduction

For while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must always be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.

—James Baldwin

At the tail end of 2020—the year that wasn't what anyone in the world thought it would be—I did something I wasn't sure I'd ever do: I left my role as chief brand officer at Black Enterprise (BE), the Black‐owned media company where I'd worked for 28 years, to accept a senior executive role in corporate America.

I hadn't sought the new position; it sought me. Having always been a big heed‐the‐Universe type, while it wasn't easy to leave the company and colleagues I'd known and loved, it felt right.

BE had turned 50 in 2020, a milestone that I felt proud to reach with it. Women of Power, the brand I cofounded and ran, celebrated its 15th year at a conference 1,300‐strong in Las Vegas in the earliest days of March. Little did we know it would be the last live gathering any of us would attend for a very long time.

We honored the inimitable sextuple threat (actor‐director‐dancer‐choreographer‐executive producer‐author) Debbie Allen at that event along with pioneering biopharma CEO Myrtle Potter, retired BET CEO Debra Lee, and Nationwide's Chief Administrative Officer Gale King, who, soon after, announced her retirement from the company where she'd spent her entire career.

These women—and the countless people, women and men, I had interviewed ...