Inside The Most Magical, Fun Safe Space for Black Women Around The World

For many, Essence Fest is an annual tradition between friends, à la Girls Trip; for others, it’s a bucket-list goal, a journey to our very own mecca that every black woman knows she should make at least once in her life. In 2017, the safe space is needed now more than ever.

Every 4th of July weekend, the black women of America leave their homes and make the pilgrimage to New Orleans for an experience unlike any other. Friends, sisters, aunties, cousins, mother-daughter duos, and lovers fill the city, where they’re the VIPs. This isn’t an awards show or fashion week — those events can keep their exclusionary vibes and sample-sized models. Here, women of every shape create runways wherever they stride, and the only vibes that fill these charming cobblestone roads are good ones. Because on Bourbon Street, there are no velvet ropes, just red carpets made of spilled frozen daiquiris.

This is Essence Fest, the unofficial national convention of black-girl magic, making the Crescent City beam with the power of a full moon since 1994.

“Essence Fest feels like a homecoming to me and so many people, for so many reasons,” Essence’s editor-in-chief, Vanessa DeLuca, said three weeks before the 2017 festival kicked off. “Our audience can come to connect with one another, celebrate with one another, and just have fun in the spirit of community. That’s different from other festivals where really the focus is the music.”

The festival is indeed one of a kind. It’s the only place where you can see Ava DuVernay laughing out loud during an early screening of Girls Trip with Kofi Siriboe one day, and hear her open up about how he and the rest of the Queen Sugar cast supported her when her father died on the Empowerment Stage the next. It’s for sure the only place where you watch Diana Ross make several costume changes without missing a note, cry with Mary J. Blige as she sings the soundtracks to her and your breakups, and then see Xscape reunite, before finally praising God for the whole experience along with Chance the Rapper as he closes out the weekend. It’s also, without a doubt, one of the few times you’re going to see Lawrence (Jay R. Ellis) and Daniel (Y’lan Noel) from Insecure walking together in harmony.

“I used to go to Coachella and things on the West Coast, where it’s a very mixed crowd, but it’s nice to be in a place where you can embrace not just your music, but everything that being black really embodies, from natural hair to food to just celebrating your blackness,” attendee Nesha Logan told BuzzFeed News, right outside the Great Hall where Sunday’s all-star gospel tribute to Cissy Houston took place. “It’s nice to be hosted by a brand and a city that actually celebrates that all year long and particularly has a festival that’s actually geared towards us and bettering our community.”

For 23 years, the Essence Festival, organized by Essence magazine, has provided a unique safe space for its audience to experience the things they love, with the people they love. It’s become an annual tradition so deeply rooted in the community that you’d be hard-pressed to find a black woman in this country who doesn’t know what it is, even if she’s never attended. For many, it’s an annual tradition between friends, à la Girls Trip; for others, it’s a bucket-list …

Please read original article-  Inside The Most Magical, Fun Safe Space for Black Women Around The World