Mr. :: essays research papers

When in November 1945 John H. Johnson, a 27-year-old Black businessman with a vision and an abiding faith in himself, launched Ebony magazine, his timing couldn't have been more perfect. World War II had just come to an end and thousands of Black GIs who had helped "make the world safe for democracy" were returning to civilian life, ready to challenge racial discrimination at home. "Ebony," says Publisher Johnson, "was founded to project al dimension of the Black personality in a world saturated with stereotypes. We wanted to give Blacks a new sense of somebodiness, a new sense of self-respect. We wanted to tell them who they were and what they could do. We believed then--and we believe now--that Blacks needed positive images to fulfill their potentialities." Thanks to that winning formula, Ebony, whose name was the brainchild of the publisher's wife, Eunice W. Johnson, immediately captured the No. 1 spot as the most widely circulated and most popular Black magazine, a position it has been able to maintain for 50 consecutive years. In keeping with its mission, Ebony began chipping away at old stereotypes and replacing them with positive Black images by highlighting the achievements of Black men and women that had heretofore been ignored by the general press. So systematic had been the exclusion of Blacks from the White-controlled media that many people, including--sadly enough--a fair number of Blacks, had serious doubts about Blacks' ability to perform as well as their White counterparts. Ebony helped change all that. With articles and dramatic photos, the new publication showed bow undaunted Black individuals were able to triumph over poverty and racial barriers and succeed in building viable careers in education, business, sports, the military, entertainment and the arts. While monitoring the ongoing saga of Black progress, the magazine also put its resources to work to show its readers that Blacks had a history to be proud of and that even during slavery, there were Black men and women whose heroic deeds he lped in the freedom struggle and paved the way for future generations of Blacks. As the Freedom Movement gained momentum in the late `50s and early `60s, Ebony became the mirror of the struggle of rights activists, both North and South, to desegregate rail and bus transportation, lunch counters, public schools, hotels and motels, the armed forces and housing. Frequently at the risk of their own safety, Ebony writers and photographers braved the menacing presence of racist sheriffs in order to bring readers firsthand accounts of the valiant battle for racial equality waged by Blacks in a recalcitrant South.