“The Chocolate Scoop” Podcast #17 “SistahSpeak on a Soul’s Solstice Summer Day” – Beth Turner, Founder of Black Mask Magazine Speaks with Nikki Williams, Producer/Host of "The Chocolate Scoop" about the Dream and the Journey Recorded June 21, 2026

The song was not made famous until the super group “Boyz II Men” made it into a hit song back in 1991. “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” originally heard in the now classic 1975 “coming of age” movie, “Cooley High,” would be the perfect backdrop song for episode #17 of the “The Chocolate Scoop” podcast. After all, what better time to have a conversation about beginnings and endings then on the Summer Solstice - the first day of Summer?

In a revealing and riveting, and often time moving conversation, Nikki Williams, producer/Host of “The Chocolate Scoop” podcast sits down with Creator and Innovator, Beth Turner, the Publisher, and Founder of the trail-blazing publication “Black Mask” magazine.

The brainchild of Beth Turner, 41 years ago, “Black Mask” magazine has gained iconic status and is a must-read for all involved in theater, and Black Theater in particular.

Starting as a “kitchen table” newsletter with the late, great Producer and Director Mr. Woody King, of New Federal Theater fame, as its cover photo and feature article, the “Black Mask” blossomed and expanded into a successful subscription based enterprise with cover stories featuring such theater notables as Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Ntozake Shange, August Wilson, Larry Leon Hamlin, Mary Alice, James Earl Jones, and the Celebrity list of “Who’s Who” in Black Theater goes on and on.

Beth Turner is being honored at this year’s International Black Theater Festival held every year in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Covers from “Black Mask” magazine are part of an exhibition at FAMU, Florida A&M University running until the end of August 2026. And Beth Turner has been commissioned to write a book on the history of contemporary Black Theater by the book publisher Routledge Publications. Not bad for someone who 41 years ago, only had a “dollar and a dream!”

So, what does this have to do with the hit song, “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday”? According to what Nikki Williams believes, “The Dream is only as Sweet as the Journey.”

From kitchen table, to relying on a technical tool called a T-Square, the “precisioned pain” of cutting and pasting, the drudgery of xeroxing, long, long hours, deadlines, and the reality of having to scrape together nickels and dimes, there was miraculously, an underlying sweetness and innocence in the process-filled Journey. A satisfaction in the belief that “Black Mask” was worth every bit of the sacrifice that Beth Turner made when she started the newsletter in 1984.

For some, saying goodbye to the sweetness of the Journey can be as hard as the challenges faced along the way. With the last issue already published and put to bed, Playwright, Theater Director, and Educator Beth Turner, Founder and Publisher of “Black Mask” Magazine shares with honesty and humor, her Journey through Triumph and Challenge. Whether it was, or whether it was not, podcast #17, will let us know from Beth Turner’s Dreamed Journey, if it was indeed, “…. so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.”

Nikki Williams

Producer/Host

“The Chocolate Scoop”

June 21, 2026

www.thechocolatescoop.net

"The Chocolate Scoop" Podcast With Nikki Williams Producer/Host "Chocolate Never Sounded So Good!"