As the public and media mourned over the death of ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, the passing of another important figure was buried in the news coverage. John Johnson, the founder and publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, died Monday at 87-years-old.
As famous as Jennings was, appearing on our televisions every night, Johnson’s death probably had the more emotional resonance for a majority of African Americans. Who among the baby boomers and Gen Xers in black America doesn’t recall growing up with Jet and Ebony magazines? A running joke in the African-American community was that a story wasn’t true until it appeared in Jet. Go to any black beauty or barbershop and one can still find aging copies of the magazine in abundance.
Johnson’s personal story served as an example of creativity in terms of making something out of nothing. He began his publishing career in 1942 by persuading his mother to sell her furniture for $500. He used the money to buy stamps for letters to potential subscribers for what would become the Negro Digest. From this deceptively simple beginning, a publishing legacy was established. Three years later, Johnson would found Ebony.
Through his magazines, Johnson provided both the news and celebrities that black America wanted. The publications, Ebony and Jet, highlighted such celebrities as Sammy Davis, Jr., Harry Belafonte and Diahann Carroll as well as non-performers such as Dr. Charles Drew and Ralph Bunche. Today, celebrities such as Holly Robinson Peete and Toni Braxton are still far more likely to make the cover of Ebony and Jet than People and Vanity Fair.
Johnson also appealed to the nation’s conscience. When Jet published the photographs of a mutilated Emmett Till in his casket, blacks were outraged and galvanized into action. Years later, Johnson and his magazines reported on the medical experiments involving black men in what was later known as the Tuskegee experiments.
If the magazines’ hard-edged stories had softened and heavily tilted in favor of soft celebrity features by the late eighties, Johnson, Ebony and Jet were still survivors.
Johnson outlasted many of his competitors. Publications such as Soul and Emerge flourished for a while before they eventually folded.
Like most organizations, the Johnson Publishing Company struggled to keep up with the times in a quickly changing media atmosphere. A few years ago, television personality Bryant Gumbel and Johnson’s daughter Linda became involved in a public dispute after Gumbel criticized Ebony’s editorial content during a speech. But truthfully, Gumbel’s criticisms articulated what many younger readers had been saying among themselves about the aging magazine.
Ebony and Jet were not only black-operated, they were 100 percent black-owned. Today, the black press fights for a different kind of survival. Johnson’s death occurs as many black-owned media are being bought out by white conglomerates not necessarily attuned to black concerns and interests. He increasingly appeared to be the lone holdout as others accepted the considerable financial rewards.
The speculation has already started about the magazines’ future now that their founder is gone. When Johnson started his magazines in the 40s, many said it could not be done. His success was a revelation to working-class blacks. Many wonder if we will ever see a visionary with his business acumen again. For that alone, the black community should continue to celebrate and support Johnson’s legacy. It’s a part of black history that should continue to be nurtured.