John Harold Johnson dies aged 87

John Harold Johnson dies aged 87

Aug 17 2005

John Harold Johnson, publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines and the most influential black publisher in history, died last week aged 87.  Born in Arkansas City, his family struggled to save enough money so that his mother, Gertrude Johnson, could take him to Chicago to continue his education past 8th grade, as there was no black high school for him to attend in Arkansas City.  In 1933 she told friends that they were visiting the Century of Progress Exposition, so if they failed and were forced to return, no one would know - but they didn't fail and she ended her days traveling by chauffeur-driven limousine, doing charity work!

After coming to Chicago, Mrs. Johnson worked as a maid, but the Depression was hard on the family and they spent two years on public relief which he described later as 'a grim, embarrassing experience'.

He founded the Johnson Publishing Company in 1942 in order to publish the Negro Digest, a magazine modeled on the Reader's Digest but aimed at African Americans.  In 1945 he started to publish Ebony, which eventually proved to be a breakthrough vehicle for advertisers to target the black middle-class market; this was followed by Jet in 1951.  However, success was far from instant and their were a number of failed ventures along the way that he persevered through. His corporation was also involved in radio stations, books and cosmetics, and for many years he was known as the richest African-American.  The South Michigan Avenue headquarters he built in 1972 is still the only black-owned high-rise in downtown Chicago.

Johnson considered financial success as important to ending discrimination as civil rights leaders' work.  In 1963 he said 'Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. can talk abstractly about goals for Negroes - But here they could see it.  He was outraged by the frequent claims that his publications were superficial and innocuous, and not sufficiently militant, to which he replied, 'I have said that we are for whatever will secure the rights of black Americans, short of burning down our cities and killing people - I don't know how we could be more militant.

In recent years, he turned control of his company over to his daughter, Linda Johnson Rice.

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