Ebony is a monthly magazine that focuses on news, culture, and entertainment. Its target audience is the African-American community, and its coverage includes the lifestyles and accomplishments of influential black people, fashion, beauty, and politics.
John Harold Johnson was an American businessman and publisher. Johnson was the founder in 1942 of the Johnson Publishing Company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Johnson's company, with its Ebony (1945) and Jet (1951) magazines, was among the most influential African-American business in media in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1982, Johnson became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400. In 1987, Johnson was named Black Enterprise Entrepreneur of the year. in 1996, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Era Bell Thompson was an American writer and editor.
Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. (JPC) was an American publishing company founded in November 1942 by African-American businessman John H. Johnson. It was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. JPC was privately held and run by Johnson until his death in 2005. His publications "forever changed the popular representation of African Americans." The writing portrayed African Americans as they saw themselves and its photojournalism made history. Led by its flagship publication, Ebony, Johnson Publishing was at one time the largest African-American-owned publishing firm in the United States. JPC also published Jet, a weekly news magazine, from November 1951 until June 2014, when it became digital only. In the 1980s, the company branched into film and television.
Lerone Bennett Jr. was an African-American scholar, author and social historian who analyzed race relations in the United States. His works included Before the Mayflower (1962) and Forced into Glory (2000), a book about U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko in South Africa. Black is beautiful got its roots from the Négritude movement of the 1930s. Negritude argued for the importance of a Pan-African racial identity among people of African descent worldwide.
Simeon Saunders Booker Jr. was an African-American journalist whose work appeared in leading news publications for more than 50 years. He was known for his journalistic works during the civil rights movement and for his coverage of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. He worked for The Washington Post, Jet, and Ebony.
The Negro Digest, later renamed Black World, was a magazine for the African-American market. Founded in November 1942 by publisher John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing Company, Negro Digest was first published locally in Chicago, Illinois. The magazine was similar to the Reader's Digest but aimed to cover positive stories about the African-American community. The Negro Digest ceased publication in 1951 but returned in 1961. In 1970, Negro Digest was renamed Black World and continued to appear until April 1976.
Ruby Hurley was an American civil rights activist. She was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and administrator for the NAACP, and was known as the "queen of civil rights".
The Colored American Magazine was the first monthly publication in the United States that covered African-American culture. It ran from May 1900 to November 1909 and had a peak circulation of 17,000. The magazine was initially published out of Boston by the Colored Co-Operative Publishing Company, and from 1904 forward, by Moore Publishing and Printing Company in New York. The editorial staff included novelist Pauline Hopkins who was also the main writer. In a 1904 hostile takeover involving Booker T. Washington, Fred Randolph Moore purchased the magazine and replaced Hopkins as editor.
Ebony Fashion Fair was an annual fashion event created by Eunice Johnson, co–founder of the Chicago, Illinois–based Johnson Publishing Company. The show ran across the United States and other countries from 1958 until 2009. In addition to the fashion fair, the company also created a cosmetic line named Fashion Fair Cosmetics, in 1973. As of 2017, Fashion Fair Cosmetics are still available for purchase.
Players was an American monthly softcore men's magazine. It was often nicknamed "the black Playboy" for its attempt at providing the African-American public with a racy, yet elegant reading choice. Once new black-centric magazines came in to the fold, publications such as The Messenger, Opportunity, and The Crisis would regularly show and portray photographs and short descriptions of Black life in America, specifically Women, to enlighten the masses as both moral and aspirational figures. These images were originally to challenge racist stereotypes, but would turn it on its head to create a vision of empowerment. Players Magazine would come along, as it would take this narrative and flip it to a sexualized state, which would change the world of snuff magazines. Players Magazine, amongst the others before it, attempted to end the narrative of ignorance towards Black life or the everyday representation of Black people.
Gerri Major was an American journalist, editor, newscaster, publicist, public health official, author and community leader. During World War I, she was a major in the American Red Cross. Thereafter, she became a society columnist and editor for African American newspapers in her home city of New York as well as in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Baltimore. In 1936, a newspaper reporter said her talent for writing vivid prose, editing, and maintaining a wide circle of influential friends brought her fame and gave her "a unique position similar to that of an arbiter over the local social set." Ebony magazine attested that by the end of the 1930s she had become "one of the best known black women in America." and at the time of her death in 1984, she held joint positions as associate editor of Jet and senior staff editor of Ebony.
Jane Morrow Spaulding was a United States social worker. She was the first African American Assistant to the United States Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the first African American female assistant secretary in a United States President's cabinet.
Jean Starr was an American actress, dancer, and trumpeter who became a Chicago society figure after marrying Chicago numbers racket tycoon and Jones brothers, McKissack "Mack" McHenry Jones, and becoming Jean Starr Jones.
The Jackson Eagle Eye was a newspaper for African Americans published by Arrington High in Jackson, Mississippi.
John Warren Moutoussamy was an American architect, best known for designing the headquarters building of the Johnson Publishing Company in downtown Chicago, Illinois. He was the first African-American architect to design a high-rise building in Chicago.
JoAnna LaSane, also written as Joanna Lasane, was an American model and arts administrator. She served on the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and was director of the Atlantic City Children's Theatre. In 1996 she was inducted into the Atlantic City Women's Hall of Fame.
Herbert Temple Jr. was an American art director and illustrator. He worked for Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago for 54 years, first as an illustrator hired in 1953, and then art director starting in 1967.
Clotye Murdock Larsson was an American journalist.
