From Negro Digest to Ebony, Jet and Em - Special Issue: 50 Years of JPC - Redefining the Black Image

Ebony, Nov, 1992

Starting wiht the publishing of Negor Digest in 1942, Johnson Publishing Co. produced a series of maga- zines-EBONY, Jet, Black World and EM-that not only informed, but in the process helped redefine Black Americans.

Today, it is difficult to imagine the status of Blacks prior to the advent of EBONY. Although they had just helped America win the biggest war in its history, American Blacks, as far as the White press was concerned were still the invisible men and women.

"If you had relied on the White press of that day," recalls Publisher John H. Jolmson in his autobiography, SucceedingAgainst the Odds, "you would have assumed that Blacks were not born, because the White press didn't deal with our births.

"You would have asstuned that we didn't finish school, because the White press didn't deal with our educational achievements .... "

So pervasive was the whiteout the White press had imposed on Black Americans' lives that many people, including some Blacks, seriously questioned Blacks' capability to play professional sports.

But Johnson, at the time the publisher of the successful Negro Digest, had plans that were to change all that.

He had decided to start a second magazine, a large-size publication that would mirror the positive side of Black life and Black achievements in words and dramatic photographs. The original idea for a second magazine came from two Negro Digest free-lancers, Jay Jackson and Ben Burns, who wanted to publish an entertainment-oriented magazine called Jive--a slang word that referred then to what is now called rap. Negro Digest Publisher Johnson, then only 27 years old, and the two men agreed to put up $1,000 each. But at putup time, neither Jackson nor Burns had the money, and Johnson proceeded alone, broadening the format of the magazine and changing the original concept. Burns joined the staff and served as executive editor for several years.

The new monthly magazine, which, like Negro Digest, sold for 25 cents a copy and which the young publisher's wife Eunice W. Johnson, had named EBONY, was launched on Nov. 1, 1945.

Surpassing all expectations, EBONY, "the magazine by us and for us," was an instant success. The first press run of 25,000 copies was sold out within hours and another 25,000 copies had to be printed immediately to meet public demand. It easily outdistanced its sister publication, Negro Digest, as the circulation champion among Black magazines, a position it was to hold for 47 years until this day. Among the magazines first editors were co-managing Editors Herbert Nipson and Era Bell Thompson.

With picture story after picture story, EBONY gave Black people their first intimate glimpse of Black entertainment stars and sports heroes. More importantly, it showed how Black people, in spite of the debilitating shackles of pervasive racism, were able to achieve in virtually every category of American life. Thus, EBONY not only helped redefine Black America to Black Americans, but at the same time succeeded in redefining the image of Blacks in the eyes of Whites and the rest of the world. Among the many effects of that changing image was the emergence of EBONY as a dependable vehicle for national advertising, without which the magazine could not have survived.

Meanwhile, EBONYs press run has grown from 25, 000 to more than 2 million while its readership has grown from 125,000 per issue to more than 9 million per issue. If put end to end, the 576 million-odd copies of EBONY sold since the magazines inception in 1945 would measure 109,000 miles, more than enough to circle the earth four times.

Today, EBONY is the unchallenged flagship of a miniconglomerate that grosses more than $200 million per year. Ironically, EBONY's growing success spelled the demise for Negro Digest, which Johnson discontinued grudgingly as unprofitable in November 1951. That same month, however, he launched a new magazine, Jet, after deciding that the time was ripe for an easy-to-read, compact-size weekly Black news magazine. The new magazines name symbolized Black and speed.

The first issue of Jet, under the editorship of Managing Editor Edward T. Clayton, featured Edna Robinson, wife of former middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson, on the cover. Like its predecessor EBONY, the 15-cent-a-copy Jet sold out instantly and within half a year was selling 300,000 copies a week, making it the largest selling Black news magazine in the world. Today, its circulation is approaching the one million mark. Eventually, Jet, too, was able to attract advertising, and to contribute substantially to the redefining of Black America through its coverage of Black news that otherwise would have been overlooked.

To meet the growing demand for Black literature during the '60s and to give Black writers an outlet for their works, Johnson revived Negro Digest under the new name Black World, under the editorship of Managing Editor Hoyt Fuller. The magazine made important contributions to the cultural transformation of the period, mainly by discovering and developing scores of Black poets and writers. But when the Freedom Movement at home and abroad ebbed, so did Black World's circulation--from 100,000 to 15,000. The financial reality of this decline forced the company to discontinue the renamed Negro Digest for the second time,