CLARENCE O. SMITH, who co-founded the first mass-circulation magazine directed at African-American women, ESSENCE, with three other black men in 1970 and helped persuade companies like Estée Lauder and Ford about the power of the Black female consumer, died on April 21. He was 92.

Mr. Smith, who lived in Yonkers, New York, died in a hospital after a short illness, his niece Kimberly Fonville Boyd said. She provided no other details.