Ebony
Who founded Ebony magazine?
What was the inspiration behind the name Ebony?
What was the significance of Ebony’s first issue?
How did Ebony magazine contribute to the American civil rights movement?
What challenges did Ebony face in the digital age?
What if there were a magazine like Life or Look with beautiful, immersive photography and comprehensive coverage of culture, business, celebrity, and the arts but focused expressly on the lives of Black Americans?
That was the question that animated John H. Johnson and his wife, Eunice Walker Johnson, in the early days of post-World War II America. The Johnsons had, in 1942, started Negro Digest, and its success inspired the pair to create the first monthly magazine to capture the vibrancy of Black life in America.
On November 1, 1945, Ebony—and what would become a Black publishing empire—was born.
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Bringing Ebony to the people
John H. Johnson was born in Arkansas in 1918, but his family became part of the Great Migration after visiting Chicago for the 1933 World’s Fair. An honor student at Chicago’s DuSable High School, he worked on both the school newspaper and yearbook, sparking a passion for journalism and an entrepreneurial spirit.
In 1941 Johnson married Eunice Walker, whom he had met while Walker was earning her master’s degree at Chicago’s Loyola University. While working at an insurance company, Johnson came up with the idea for a magazine aimed at the Black community. He decided to send a letter to all the insurance policyholders requesting a $2 subscription to such a magazine; Johnson had to use his mother’s furniture as collateral for a $500 loan to cover the postage costs. It proved a wise investment. Within a year Negro Digest had a circulation of 50,000 copies.
But the Johnsons had broader ambitions. It was Eunice Johnson who came up with the name Ebony, as the couple’s daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, would recall years later, saying in a PBS interview: “The name Ebony actually came from…my mother, Eunice Johnson. She picked the name because it was a very strong, solid wood from Africa. From our origins. And it means ‘black.’ ”
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“Before I started Ebony you’d never know from reading other publications that Blacks got married, had beauty contests, gave parties, ran successful businesses, or carried on any normal living activities.”
The first issue of Ebony sold for 25 cents on Chicago newsstands; its inaugural cover featured six white boys hanging out with one Black boy, to accompany an article on racial tolerance and unity. The magazine featured an eclectic mix of articles, including a profile of a formerly enslaved person turned successful bank owner, discussions on Black authors including Richard Wright, a story about race in Brazil, and a piece on the sale of African art by the University of Pennsylvania. The demand for a publication like Ebony was immediately clear when all 25,000 copies of the first issue sold out. In 1951 Johnson added Jet magazine to his publishing portfolio.
Ebony in motion
In the following decades Ebony grew to greater heights, both in circulation and coverage. By 1955 Ebony’s circulation was 400,000, and Johnson had convinced mainstream advertisers, including Zenith, Quaker Oats, Pepsi, and Colgate, that they were missing out on an enormous market by not targeting their products at the growing Black middle class.
With the growth of the civil rights movement, Ebony took on the issue of race in America in ambitious, attention-getting special editions. The first of these, published in September 1963, marked the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The cover featured abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and inside readers found guest essays from an array of U.S. presidents: Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy. Such was the place in American culture that Ebony had secured.
Subsequent special editions would explore the Black Power movement and the role of Black youth in the future of the country, featuring contributors including Huey P. Newton and Jesse Jackson.
“Then Ebony arrived in 1945…to inform us and assure us that our lives were so important, they could never be edited out of the history of our people.”
The magazine’s editorial success was mirrored by its growth as a business. By 1965, as it marked its 20th anniversary, circulation was close to 900,000. With growth came a new home and the need to scale operations. In 1971 Ebony and Jet magazines moved into the iconic and custom-built Johnson Publishing Company Building, located on Chicago’s tony Michigan Avenue. It was the city’s first skyscraper designed by a Black architect for a Black-owned company.
This growth was of great importance to Johnson, who took pride in what the magazine claimed were its more than five million Black and white readers. The magazine was found everywhere from schools and universities to inner-city homes and the mansions of the elite. It continued to highlight, feature, and photograph Black achievement. Over the years readers would come to expect surprising and intimate photographs including new father Thurgood Marshall with his wife and first son in 1956, an impassioned Malcolm X on the pulpit in 1965, and a coquettish Tina Turner photographed poolside in 1982. By 1982 Johnson’s publishing empire was so influential and profitable that he became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. The company’s annual revenue in the 1980s was about $200 million.
Challenges in a digital publishing world
The turn of the 21st century found Ebony and Johnson Publishing facing many of the same issues that plagued the publishing industry more broadly: the advent of the Internet and its effects on print publications, including piracy and the loss of advertising dollars. It was also a time of change for the Johnson family: John H. Johnson died in 2005, and Eunice Johnson died in 2010. Their daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, became chief executive officer in 2002.
Even as the economic climate in publishing became more dire, Ebony continued to be a forum for discussion of Black life. In September 2013, in response to the fatal shooting of Black teenager Trayvon Martin, the magazine published four covers bearing the headline “We Are Trayvon.” Among those featured were director Spike Lee with his son, and basketball star Dwyane Wade with his two sons. All sported gray hoodies like the one Martin was wearing when he was killed.
Still, in 2016 Johnson Publishing sold Ebony and Jet magazines to the private-equity firm Clear View Group. By 2019 Ebony stopped printing and Johnson Publishing went bankrupt, filing for liquidation. The historic Black publication’s future was uncertain until former Milwaukee Bucks player and businessman Ulysses Bridgeman bought both publications for $14 million in 2020. Ebony relaunched as a primarily digital publication in March 2021 through Ebony Media Group.
Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, Ebony became a publication for 25- to 44-year-old Black Americans, claiming to reach 30 million monthly readers through print and digital platforms.