John Harold Johnson (January 19, 1918 – August 8, 2005) was an American business executive and publisher. He was the founder in 1942 of the Johnson Publishing Company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Johnson's company, with its creation of Ebony (1945) and Jet (1951) magazines, was among the most influential African-American business in media in the second half of the twentieth century,Johnson 1993 peaking at 9 million subscribers.
Johnson was born into a poor family in Arkansas. In the early 1930s, during the Great Migration of African Americans out if the Southern United States, his family moved to Chicago. He became a standout student DuSable High School, and received a scholarship to the University of Chicago. He worked for an African American owned insurance company in his early career and to put himself through university. Seeing a need for African American representation in American media, he founded his publishing company in the early 1940s and would remain its leader until his death in 2005.
In 1982, Johnson became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400. In 1987, he was named Black Enterprise Entrepreneur of the decade.WTTW - (Power, Politics, & Pride: Johnson Publishing)WTTW (Johnson Publishing Company Leaves Behind Rich Legacy) April 15, 2019 Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by United States President Bill Clinton in 1996.
Biography Early years and education
John H. Johnson was born in Arkansas City, Arkansas, to parents Gertrude (died 1977) and Leroy Johnson (died 1926) both the children of slaves. Leroy died in 1926 in a sawmill accident. Gertrude worked as a cook in a Mississippi river levee camp, and was passionate about education. In 1927 Johnson lived through the Great Mississippi flood which displaced him and his family. As a child, he lived on the levee and observed racial dynamics firsthand. Johnson had a half-sister from his mother named Beulah, she would join a religious organization who followed a man named Father Divine and would disappear, dying sometime in the 40s. Gertrude Johnson would remarry Johnson's step father, who died 1961, some years after Leroy's death. In the process of completing middle school, Johnson and his mother spent a year in Vicksburg in 1930 where he attended St. Mary's Catholic school. Johnson attended a segregated school and completed middle school in 1932. He then repeated the 8th grade to save up to move to Chicago to further his education.
His family moved to Chicago at the time of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, during the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South. To make the move possible Gertrude left her husband in Arkansas, though they would later reunite. His family spent many years living on welfare, this would be, according to Johnson, one of his biggest motivators. After his move to Chicago he initially attended Wendell Phillips High School. After it burned down he moved to DuSable High School. His classmates at DuSable included Nat King Cole, Redd Foxx, and Harold Washington. This only fueled his already formidable determination to "make something of himself." Johnson's high-school career was distinguished by the leadership qualities he demonstrated as student council president, as editor of the school newspaper and class yearbook, leader of the student forum, and president of the French club. He started studying self-improvement books to become a better speaker. During his graduation ceremony Johnson would give the only student speech, this speech was picked up by the Chicago Defender, at which point Johnson would change his name to John Harold Johnson.
After he graduated with honors in 1936, he was offered a scholarship to the University of Chicago. Although tuition was fully covered, other expenses were not. Because of his achievements in high school, Johnson was invited to speak at a dinner held by the Urban League. When Harry Pace, president of the Supreme Life Insurance Company, heard Johnson's speech, he was so impressed with him that he offered Johnson a job so that he would be able to use the scholarship.
Johnson began as an office boy at Supreme Life in 1936, and within two years had become Pace's assistant. His duties included preparing a monthly digest of newspaper articles. By 1939, he was editing Supreme Life's in-house magazine and dropped out of college that same year, taking on a full-time role at SLL by 1941. Johnson would drop out of college around 1939 at which point he was working full time at SLL. While at SLL Johnson met Earl Dickerson, a prominent lawyer and activist in the Chicago Black community. This connection to Dickerson led to Johnson being named to assist in his campaign for alderman of Chicago's Second Ward, against William L. Johnson. After assisting in Dickerson's campaign Johnson was named political secretary.
His working compiling and gathering news exposed him to Black newspapers around the country, and Johnson became an informal source of news in the Black community. Johnson began to wonder if others might not enjoy the same type of service. He conceived of a publication patterned after Reader's Digest. His work at Supreme Life also gave him the opportunity to see the day-to-day operations of a business owned by an African American and fostered his dream of starting a business of his own.. He eventually met his wife Eunice Walker in 1940 while she was attending Loyola University for a master's degree in social work. They got married on June 21, 1941, in Selma, Alabama, and would adopt 2 children John Harold Johnson Jr in 1956 and Linda Johnson in 1958, Johnson Junior would pass away at the age of 25 in 1981 from sickle cell anemia.
Johnson Publishing Company Negro Digest Once the idea of Negro Digest occurred to him, it began to seem like a "black gold mine," Johnson stated in his autobiography Succeeding against the Odds. He spent months searching for funding, despite that he remained enthusiastic even though he was discouraged on all sides from doing so. Only his mother, a woman with biblical faith and deep religious convictions, as well as a powerful belief in her son, supported his vision and allowed him to use her furniture as collateral for a $500 loan to buy stamps. He used those stamps to mail offers to 20,000 policyholders in the SLL phonebook, securing 3,000 subscribers at $2 each. He used the funds to publish the first edition of Negro Digest in 1942, which featured Langston Hughes and Walter White, tying the publication to civil rights. It countered stereotypes by showcasing Black professionals, artists, and history. Johnson would get a deferment for World War II, being deemed too vital to the distribution of information nationally. During its early days, the Negro Digest was run out of the SLL law library. Johnson had a problem with distribution until he teamed up with Joseph Levy, a magazine distributor who was impressed with him. Levy provided valuable marketing tips and opened the doors that allowed the new digest to reach newsstands in other urban centers. In order to convince publishers there was newsstand demand he reimbursed friends and coworkers who bought most of the copies, and would then resell them later. He would continue to use guerrilla tactics early on to sell his magazine. He had salesmen across the country directly selling the magazine. In addition, he employed postmen to help geomap his target population within cities to more efficiently place flyers. He also took it upon himself to sell in busses, streetcars, and even in cotton fields to get his magazine out into the open market. Within six months, circulation had reached 50,000. In 1943, he would unofficially leave SLL to focus on his magazine, though he wouldn't officially leave until he started buying shares in the company, eventually becoming its CEO. Johnson would purchase his first property in 1943, which would eventually become the first headquarters of the Johnson Publishing Company. Negro Digest was brought to new heights when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a column in 1943, increasing circulation to 150,000 readers. Due to American war efforts, he was told in 1945 that he needed to reduce his publishing reach by almost fourfold. To rectify this, he went to a lawyer by the name of J. Norman Goddess, who advised him to plead to the government on his own to garner sympathy. He made an impassioned plea to the War Production Board and won, allowing him to continue publishing and preventing the Negro Digest from collapsing. This publication covered African-American history, literature, arts, and cultural issues. In 1951, Negro Digest was discontinued, having been dwarfed by Ebony. It would make a brief return in the 1960s under the name Black World before its ultimate dissolution in 1976.
Ebony and JET Although Negro Digest achieved some success and at its height had a circulation of more than 100,000, it was dwarfed by Johnson's subsequent publication, Ebony, which was so popular that its initial run of 25,000 copies easily sold out. The articles in Ebony, were designed to look like those in Life or Look magazines, designed to emphasize the achievements of successful African Americans. Another major reason for Ebony was to allow black people to see themselves in publications for the first time, countering stereotypes by showcasing Black professionals, artists, and history. The name came from a concept Jive brought to him by investors, this concept was realized when Eunice came up with the name Ebony and when the other investors left Johnson capitalized. Photo essays about current events and articles about race relations were also included in the magazine, along with its initial focus on the rich and famous in the African-American community. In 1946 Ebony would run into its first major issues, the expensive prospect of printing in color, combined with a lack of advertising. After rejection from countless advertisement agencies Johnson would again resort to guerilla methods to get advertisements in his magazine. The first success came with Fairfax Cone and the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Johnson would meet him every week on a train to New York, eventually wearing him down and landing an invaluable asset to future advertisement. While working towards bigger advertisement opportunities he would create 4 mail order companies to occupy advertisements in his magazine. Those companies were; Beauty Star Cosmetics, Linda Fashions, The Negro Digest Book Shop, and Star Glow Wigs. They advertised solely in Ebony and sold cosmetic items, clothing, vitamins and books, and wigs all through mail order.