John Johnson: Why his death went unnoticed

When ABC newsreader Peter Jennings died Aug. 7 of lung cancer, the story dominated the air waves and electronic media for many days. Entertainment Tonight gave great prominence to this event.

Just the opposite happened when John H. Johnson died one day later on Aug. 8. Once his obituary appeared, he was all but forgotten by the big-business media.

Just who was John H. Johnson? Johnson was the 87-year-old African-American publisher of two of the most well-known Black-oriented magazines ever, Jet and Ebony.

Johnson grew up poor under segregation in Arkansas. His father was killed in a saw mill accident when he was 8 years old. There was no Black high school there, so as a teenager he and his mother migrated to Chicago where he lived until his death.

He founded Johnson Publishing Company back in 1942 and to this day it remains the number-one African-American publishing company worldwide. His first magazine, Negro Digest, led to the 1945 founding of Ebony magazine, which still comes out monthly and has over 1 million subscribers. Jet magazine began in 1951 and became the number-one Black weekly publication. In 1973, Johnson Publishers also created Fashion Fair Cosmetics, skin products that cater mainly to women of color.

If you are Black in the U.S., Jet and Ebony were at one time or another an important part of your social upbringing. Regardless of your economic status and political outlook, these two magazines covered politics, sports, entertainment, business, international developments, etc.—all from a Black perspective. Jet and Ebony helped to fill a huge void in terms of what the white-dominated media neglected to cover with the issues that directly impacted Black America.

Even though Johnson was a capitalist and politically conservative, his magazines covered the social issues of the day—from the civil rights struggles to the Black Power movement to developments in Africa.

The fact that someone like Jennings, a well-known white journalist, would get more attention than someone like Johnson, an African-American media pioneer, exposes once again the double standard that flows from racism—U.S. style. Certainly white media moguls, like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, would never be treated in such a dismissive way if they were to pass away tomorrow. In fact, they would be treated like gods.