Like many Penn students, founder and former CEO and Chairman of Essence Magazine Edward Lewis took the Wall Street route to his true passion.
“If there’s one thing to remember from my talk today it’s that cash is king, queen, jack, spade and everything else,” Lewis said.
Lewis spoke about his journey from the South Bronx to investment banking to magazine racks and how he became a symbol for the empowerment of black women.
“My mom was a factory worker. My dad was a janitor at City College,” Lewis said. “Every summer my mom sent me to work on my grandma’s farm.” There, he and the children of his mother’s 13 other siblings worked and bonded. “The work ethic was part of my upbringing.”
After graduating high school, Lewis attended the University of New Mexico on a football scholarship, where he studied political science and international relations. “I was accepted to Georgetown Law School but flunked out,” Lewis said. “If that had not happened, I might never have started Essence.”
After returning to New York, Lewis worked at Citi Bank. “There was a lot of desire to get the blacks into the capitalist business world,” Lewis said.
His chosen path was not on Wall Street, but to launch a magazine targeting black women. In 1968, he met his three future business partners and Essence was born.
“Blacks were underserved. We thought we could make a difference,” Lewis said. With only $130,000 out of the $1.5 million they needed, he and his partners built a magazine that now serves 12 million monthly.
“Our philosophy is that all black women are beautiful,” Lewis said.
Lewis’s talk was the culmination of the United Minorities Council’s annual Unity Week. Earlier in the week, the UMC showed a documentary about human trafficking and hosted a discussion about cultural climate, an Open Mic and a community service event.
“There are few events to discuss issues that unite minorities,” UMC Vice Chair and Wharton junior Tanya Jain said. “The purpose was to bring different people together.”
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