The Marcia Ann Gillespie I Remember: A 60-Year Friendship Forged at the Dawn of Two Journalism Careers

PUBLISHED 11/4/2026 by

Marcia and I first met in 1966 at Time-Life Books, our first jobs after college. We didn’t know each other, because we worked in different research departments at opposite ends of the same floor in the big Time-Life Inc. building.

One day I was exploring the territory, and I stumbled upon this young Black woman hard at work at her desk. “Hello,” I said tentatively. Marcia looked up with surprise and a smile broke out on her face as we introduced ourselves. We were no longer “the only ones.”

From that day, we became close friends.

Marcia’s mother, Ethel Gillespie, was a successful caterer on Long Island, and at our annual Christmas dinner gathering, Marcia could be counted on to proudly share her mother’s cherished recipes. Marcia learned to prepare her food with the same meticulous legacy that she applied to life—no shortcuts.

Marcia Ann Gillespie Was My Hero. Then She Became My Friend.

PUBLISHED 11/4/2026 by

Marcia Ann Gillespie was my dear friend for 40 years, but long before that, she was my inspiration.

She is rightly remembered as an influential political and social critic, a women’s and civil rights advocate, and the provocative editor-in-chief of Essence and Ms. magazines. To me, Marcia was all of that and—as she would say—a bag of chips.

In 1970, when Marcia joined Essence magazine as managing editor, I was an undergraduate at the University of Missouri in Columbia. At the time, Black students were an unwelcome bit of chocolate in a very large vat of vanilla. In response, we organized the Legion of Black Collegians. Our goal was to compel the university to hire Black faculty, introduce courses addressing the historical and contemporary lives and concerns of Black people, and confront the racism and bigotry we frequently experienced from both teachers and fellow students.

We raised our fists, marched and chanted, but many of us had not yet learned how to apply “I’m Black and I’m Proud” to ourselves as women. Then came Marcia Ann Gillespie and Essence magazine.

Rest in Power, Marcia Ann Gillespie: The Trailblazing Editor Who Transformed Women’s Media

PUBLISHED 11/3/2026 by

Marcia Ann Gillespie, an innovator and pathbreaker in media who lifted up the voices of Black women in a field dominated by men, died on Saturday, Oct. 31. She was 82.

Heralded for breaking barriers in journalism, she was an inspiring writer, revered editor and thought leader. She came of age in media leadership in the wake of the horrific assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., amid the lingering Vietnam War. It was an era defined by the rise of Black power and Black love movements, but also by the killings of student protesters at Kent State University.

Gillespie was born on July 10, 1944, in Rockville Centre, N.Y., to entrepreneurial, hardworking parents. After graduating from Lake Forest College in Illinois, she returned to New York to work at Time-Life Books, which was bustling and rapidly expanding at the time, with publications spanning nature, art, food and more.

Her remarkable path at Essence began in 1970, when she joined the new magazine as managing editor. Just a year later, in 1971, she became editor-in-chief at age 26, shortly after a group of Black entrepreneurs invested in the idea that Black women were eager for a magazine that would embrace their culture, lifestyle and experiences.

After a decade at Essence, she joined Ms. magazine in 1980, first as a contributing writer and editor, then as an executive editor, before taking the helm as editor-in-chief from 1993 to 2001. She became the first Black woman to lead the magazine.

What Did Gloria Steinem Mean to You? Share Your Story With Ms.

PUBLISHED 9/8/2026 by

Ms. has created a new digital tribute to Gloria Steinem, bringing together memories and reflections from friends, colleagues, fellow activists and readers around the world.

We invite you to add your voice by answering one question: What did Gloria mean to you?

Gloria was the people’s feminist. She made people feel seen, heard and capable of changing the world. She famously reminded us, “The Constitution does not begin with ‘I, the president.’ It begins with ‘We, the people.’”

So we invite you—the people—to help tell the story of her extraordinary feminist legacy.

Perhaps you met Gloria at a march, lecture or organizing meeting. Perhaps you grew up reading Ms. or discovered her writing decades later. Maybe her words helped you recognize an injustice, leave a harmful situation, find your voice, raise a feminist child, begin organizing or imagine a life beyond the limits prescribed for you.

Your tribute does not need to capture the whole of Gloria’s life or legacy. It only needs to tell your part of the story.

Share your memory, reflection or story about Gloria Steinem.

Gloria Steinem Lit a Revolution. The Torch Is Ours Now.

PUBLISHED 9/5/2026 by

This week, Gloria Steinem died at the age of 92, peacefully at her home in New York City and surrounded by people who loved her.

We will miss her at Ms. I will miss her personally.

There were parts of Gloria’s childhood that mirrored my own. For a period of time, Gloria did not attend school because she was tending to her mother. She later said that she chose not to have children because she had already had a mother to take care of.

We do not talk enough about stories like that: the sensitivity that came from her own childhood. Pronatalism in the United States still insists that all women should want children, care for those children, stay home and find satisfaction within the narrow boundaries others have drawn for them. Even education has historically been framed not as a path toward women’s intellectual or economic freedom, but as a place to find a husband.

To want something more—and to care about something larger than the life prescribed for you—has always carried challenging consequences for women. Gloria understood that deeply. She also understood that the freedom to shape one’s life begins with the ability to govern one’s own body.

In 2017, standing before the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., Gloria called for “a deep democracy” in which people would refuse to be quiet or controlled. “We are at one with each other,” she said. “We are looking at each other, not up. No more asking Daddy.”

Those words carry a special weight today. Democracy has never been a gift delivered from above. Equality has never arrived because people in power suddenly found it convenient. Both are built by people who recognize one another, tell the truth about their lives and refuse to accept that injustice is inevitable.

Rest in Power, Robin Morgan—Ms. Editor, Poet, Feminist and Architect of the Women’s Movement

PUBLISHED 9/5/2026 by

Longtime Ms. editor and “architect of the contemporary women’s movement,” Robin Morgan died peacefully in her sleep on Sept. 5, 2026, just days after her friend and feminist partner Gloria Steinem.

Morgan called Ms. “a real family,” citing the depth and longevity of the relationships many people established through it. She would go on to found the Women’s Media Center alongside Ms. cofounder Gloria Steinem and actor and activist Jane Fonda in 2005.

“Robin Morgan was one of the architects of the contemporary women’s movement,” said Julie Burton, president and CEO of the Women’s Media Center. “Her global leadership for justice and equality, her work as a pioneering journalist who gave voice and visibility to women, and her fierce artistry as an internationally recognized poet and author of more than 20 books—these all constitute the legacy she has forged over decades of creative, cultural, and political work. 

Fall 2026 Cover Reveal: Gloria Steinem Changed the Story, and Taught Us to Keep Telling It

PUBLISHED 9/4/2026 by

In our Fall 2026 issue, we remember Gloria not only for the words she wrote, the organizations she helped build or the barriers she broke, but for the connections she made.

Perhaps her greatest gift was her ability to listen, to make people feel capable of changing the world, and to build relationships across generations and movements. She knew that the work would outlast any one of us. The responsibility was to keep telling the story—and to make room for those who would tell it next.

Join today to get our newest issue delivered straight to your mailbox—and help sustain the independent feminist journalism Gloria worked to make possible.

Join Ms. Magazine and Get Our Landmark FEMINIST 250 Print Issue for This Pivotal Moment in American History

PUBLISHED 6/16/2026 by

As the U.S. prepares to mark its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, questions loom over the celebration: Whose America gets remembered, whose gets erased—and how do we imagine and build a democracy that includes all of us? 

In the Summer issue of Ms., we revisit the nation’s founding through a feminist lens, reclaiming the stories too often left out of the official narrative: women who challenged the authors of the Declaration of Independence and later the U.S. Constitution for deliberately writing women out of America’s founding documents, Black women who resisted oppression from the start, Indigenous societies built around women-led governance, queer lives in revolutionary America, Asian women’s struggles for belonging and the long fight to make disability visible in our history.

We also look back at 54 years of feminist reporting from the pages of Ms.—proof that the battles for bodily autonomy, equality and democracy did not begin yesterday—and forward to the bold new ideas that could shape a freer, fairer future for the next 250 years.

Get a year of Ms. for just $20 (a 43 percent discount off our usual price) when you join today!

May 21 Virtual Event: Tackling Patriarchy and Power (With Anna Malaika Tubbs, Aisha Becker-Burrowes and Danielle Robay)

PUBLISHED 5/20/2026 by

The Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. have partnered with Women’s Foundation California to invite you to a national virtual conversation with Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs that turns our attention toward the system that has kept us from achieving true democracy for the last 250 years: patriarchy. 

Drawing from her latest book (and New York Times best-seller) Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us, Tubbs traces the ruthless logic that has organized American life for 250 years—always bound to race, always rooted in a binary that decides who counts and who does not.

The event is Thursday, May 21, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 CT / 8:30 ET. RSVP today!

Tubbs will be joined in conversation by Aisha Becker-Burrowes, co-founder and co-executive director of FEMINIST—a nonprofit media company serving a global community of over 6 million—and interviewed by TV host, journalist and content creator, Danielle Robay.

Black Feminist Visionary Beverly Guy-Sheftall to Discuss New Book ‘Black! Feminist! Free!’ @ LA Ms. Mag HQ, April 23

PUBLISHED 4/14/2026 by

A leading voice in Black feminist scholarship will take center stage in Beverly Hills later this month, as Beverly Guy-Sheftall joins professor and dean emerita Bonnie Thornton Dill for a public conversation on her new book, Black! Feminist! Free!

The event, hosted at Ms. magazine headquarters in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 23, from 6 to 8 p.m., is free and open to the public. Attendees can expect an evening of reflection, dialogue and community, with light refreshments provided. Copies of Guy-Sheftall’s book will be available for purchase on site, followed by a signing hosted by Reparations Club. RSVP today!