John H. Johnson was the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company. The Chicago-based company published Ebony and Jet magazines, which became fixtures in Black households across the country. John Harold Johnson was born on January 19th 1918 in Arkansas City, AR. Johnson's mother worked as a camp cook for two years to save the money for a train ticket to Chicago for them, further his education beyond the eighth-grade level, because there was no high school for Black students in Arkansas City. Johnson enrolled at DuSable High School, an all-Black high school known for its rigorous academic program. His classmates at DuSable included Nat King Cole, Redd Foxx, and Harold Washington. He was elected class president and edited the school newspaper before he graduated in 1936.
After graduating from DuSable High School, Johnson worked for Henry H. Pace, then president of Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, a large and respected Black-owned firm in Bronzeville, Ill. Pace gave him an entry-level, part-time office position while he attended the University of Chicago part-time. Johnson dropped out of school, preferring the on-the-job education and curriculum provided by Supreme Life, where he learned the value of entrepreneurship and the importance of private enterprise. In 1939 Johnson was promoted to editor of Supreme Life's newsletter, and he began to dabble in local political campaigns. In 1940 Johnson met Eunice Walker, who was attending Loyola University for a masters in social work, whom he married the next year.
Beginning in 1942, John H. Johnson did more than inject color into the ultra-White world of American magazine publishing – he created an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. Johnson developed the idea of collecting articles into a monthly magazine to be called Negro Digest. It was inspired by Reader’s Digest. To stimulate sales, Johnson persuaded thirty of his friends to ask for Negro Digest at newsstands, creating demand. The strategy worked, and circulation climbed steadily. The magazine found a readership ready for stories that portrayed Blacks in more favorable representations than the crime reports that were published in most newspapers. He took the best of what was happening with Black folks around the country and put it in the magazine. Inside of a year, the magazine averaged 50,000 readers monthly.
From Negro Digest to the iconic Ebony and Jet magazines, Johnson changed the landscape of print journalism by offering authentic portraits of both the ordinary and extraordinary aspects of Black life. The creation of Ebony in 1945 was a response to the popular pictorial content of Life and Look, and the 25,000 copies printed for its premier issue in November of 1945 sold out entirely. It took just six years for Ebony to reach circulation of more than 450,000. Combining a heavy focus on lifestyle stories and flashy photographs with market research, Ebony attracted White advertisers and was able to convince them that using Black models would be most effective for reaching Black consumers. This was a major shift as before Ebony there were no major Black models.
Johnson's magazines relied heavily on his sales skills those first years to land the advertising accounts that brought in revenue. He was determined to win business from major American companies, not just those aimed at Black consumers, and his persistence revolutionized magazine publishing. The first company he convinced was Zenith, a radio manufacturer, and others quickly followed suit. The success of Ebony eroded the circulation of Negro Digest, leading Johnson to make the difficult business decision to discontinue the latter's publication in 1951. It would make a brief return in the 1960s under the name "Black World" before its ultimate dissolution in 1976.
During 1951, Johnson launched Jet, which covered the achievements of Blacks in entertainment, politics, and sports. Jet was designed to be a pocket sized magazine, and was run in a weekly format to complement Ebony’s monthly editions. It, too, became enormously successful, and as with Ebony, it was a staple in nearly every middle-class African-American household for a generation and more. As the civil rights era gathered steam, Johnson's magazines profiled the movement's leaders, covered important events, and delivered strong opinions in both its editorials and feature articles about race relations in America. The stories told by John H. Johnson’s magazines defeated the notion that the lives of his people did not deserve the attention given to others.
Photo essays about current events and articles about race relations were also included in the magazine. Initially focused on the rich and famous in the African-American community, Johnson expanded the reporting to include issues such as "the white problem in America", African-American militancy, crimes by African Americans against African Americans, civil rights legislation, Freedom Rides and marches, and other aspects of segregation and discrimination. Writers attended Southern church meetings, offering insider civil rights perspectives. Professional historians were recruited for the magazine's staff so that the contributions of African Americans to the history of the United States could be adequately documented. Jet would become the world’s largest African American news weekly magazine.
One of Johnson's most notable issues of Jet was the September 15, 1955 issue in which he published a picture of a Chicago–youth Emmett Till's mutilated body after it had arrived in Chicago from Mississippi. People considered Johnson's decision to publish Till's photograph his greatest moment. Michigan congressman Charles Diggs recalled that given the emotion the image stimulated, it was "probably one of the greatest media products in the last 40 or 50 years". Because of the reach of Ebony and Jet president Dwight D. Eisenhower met with Johnson. This would start a pipeline of information in which every single subsequent president to Johnson's death met with him. President Lyndon B. Johnson described him as “the only man who can get 20 million people to listen to you".
Johnson built a media empire with the publication of Ebony and Jet, two magazines aimed at African-American readership. He became a millionaire at 31 and is credited with inventing the Black consumer market. Now that he owned both the leading monthly and weekly African American magazines, Johnson could focus his energies on growing the business. He started a magazine for kids called Ebony Jr! and another one called African American Stars. And if that wasn’t enough, his company published books, and he bought two radio stations—he was the first Black person in Chicago to own any kind of broadcasting company. Plus, in 1958, he started the Ebony Fashion Fair. His wife, Eunice, ran it. The show toured the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, raising between $47 and $51 million for Black charities.
In 1971, he became the first Black person to own a building on Chicago's famed Michigan Avenue when he moved his Johnson Publishing headquarters there. Two years later, the company launched Fashion Fair Cosmetics, a line of makeup in shades flattering to darker skin. His wife, mother, and daughter all held executive positions. This groundbreaking line specifically targeted Black women, who had long been overlooked by mainstream beauty brands. Johnson recognized the need for representation and empowerment within the beauty industry, and he seized the opportunity to fill that gap. The success of Fashion Fair showed not only Johnson’s keen business acumen but also his commitment to uplifting and celebrating the diversity of Black women. Johnson Publishing became the largest Black-owned publishing company in the nation.
Throughout his career, Johnson was a strong supporter of the civil rights movement. Johnson Publications documented and helped fuel the Civil Rights Movement. Johnson also had Martin Luther King Jr. write an advice column for Ebony in the late 1950s. This column gave King a national platform to garner support for the civil rights movement. One of Ebony's most well known and regarded issues was the 1968 issue covering the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in which Moneta Sleet would win a Pulitzer Prize. He was involved in international diplomacy as well, serving as a special ambassador to the Ivory Coast and Kenya independence ceremonies in the 1960s. Active in local politics, Johnson helped Harold Washington become the first African American to win election as Chicago’s mayor in 1983.
Johnson received many awards in recognition of his achievements. The awards spans decades, from the Spingarn Medal to the Most Outstanding Black Publisher in History Award from the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Johnson Publishing has also been named the number one black business by Black Enterprise four times. In 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He also received more than thirty honorary doctoral degrees from institutions across the country. Johnson served as a board member or trustee of numerous businesses and philanthropic and cultural organizations. In 1997, Johnson was inducted into the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame. Johnson passed away in 2005 at the age of 87.