[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 111 (Thursday, September 8, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1788-E1789]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING JOHN H. JOHNSON

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 8, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the life 
and legacy of the publishing mogul Mr. John H. Johnson, who died on 
August 8, 2005 at the age of 87. Mr. Johnson rose from extreme poverty 
to become founder and chairman of Johnson's Publishing Company, the 
world's largest African-American owned publishing Company. Mr. Johnson 
is one of America's most distinguished entrepreneurs, whose 
publications have helped to change the landscape of American history.
  Mr. Johnson was born on January 19, 1918, in Arkansas City during 
southern segregation, which played an integral role in shaping his 
successful future. Another element that helped shape his path was his 
mother. When Mr. Johnson was 8 years of age, his mother moved the 
family up to Chicago with the belief that the Jim Crow south was no 
place to nurture and raise a Black child from whom she expected 
greatness. Like so many other blacks from the South, his mother 
believed that the North provided better economic and social 
opportunities for African Americans. Therefore, Johnson's family took 
part in The Great Migration of the early 1900's and moved north.
  During his high school years, Mr. Johnson worked part time for the 
Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company (he would later become chairman 
of the board). Part of his duties was to prepare a digest for the 
company president of Black or Black-oriented stories in the American 
press. This gave inspiration to the establishment of his first magazine 
the ``Negro Digest''. After being refused business loans from banks and 
other financial institutions, Mr. Johnson used his mother's furniture 
as collateral for a $500 loan. In 1942, Negro Digest

[[Page E1789]]

was first published and became an instant success. This became the 
first of his many future capital ventures. Subsequently, in 1945 Mr. 
Johnson launched his most successful magazine Ebony, which sold 25,000, 
making it the largest circulated Black magazine of the time. Today, 
with its 60 year history, Ebony is still a success with a circulation 
of 1.6 million.
  In 1951, 10 years after the start of Ebony, Mr. Johnson started Jet 
magazine, which became the number one Black newsweekly. Subsequently, 
he invested in book publishing and Fashion Fair Cosmetics, which was 
designed to fit the needs of African American women by offering a 
complete line of high-quality beauty and skin care products for a wide 
variety of skin tones. Moreover, he has invested in several radio 
stations, and has majority ownership in the company that inspired it 
all, Supreme Liberty Life Insurance.
  The success of his magazines and other business endeavors were 
supported by Johnson's objective to show ``not only to the Negroes, but 
also white people that Negroes got married, had beauty contests, gave 
parties, ran successful businesses, and do all the other normal things 
of life.'' His publications became a vehicle for his civil rights 
activism. Mr. Johnson purposefully presented positive imagery of blacks 
as professionals, movie stars, activists, and more, to combat the many 
negative stereotypes that permeated throughout the collective 
conscience of this country, which was overwhelmingly manifested through 
mainstream media. Ebony magazine highlighted the success and 
achievements of African Americans, taking a more glamorized prospective 
of Black America, while Jet magazine focused on the politics, 
entertainment, business, and sports. President Clinton, observed that 
Mr. Johnson ``gave African-Americans a voice and a face, in his words, 
`a new sense of somebody-ness,' of who they were and what they could 
do, at a time when they were virtually invisible in mainstream American 
culture.''
  John Johnson made history when he published the unedited and 
notorious 1955 pictures of the mutilated body of 14 year old murder 
victim Emmett Till, who was slain in Mississippi for allegedly 
whistling at a white girl. Johnson published the pictures to show the 
world the cruel reality of Jim Crow, and the violent results of legal 
segregation. As a result, the images of Emmett Till became the catalyst 
that sparked the flame that fueled the Civil Rights Movement. It was 
the pictures that Mr. Johnson published that inspired Rosa Parks to 
refuse to acquiesce and relinquish her seat to a white man, which in 
turn led to the kindling of the Civil Rights Movement.
  As a result of Johnson's success, both in his publishing and 
activism, he has received many accolades and awards. In 1982 he was the 
first African American ever to be on Forbes Magazine's 400 Richest 
Americans. He was a member of the Publishing Hall of Fame, the National 
Business Hall of Fame, the Advertising Hall of Fame and the Arkansas 
Business Hall of Fame. He also received the Spingarn Medal, the highest 
honor from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
People. In addition, he received the Salute to Greatness Award, the 
highest award for the Martin Luther King Jr. center for Nonviolent 
Social Change. In 1972 he was named Publisher of the Year by the 
Magazine Publishers Association. Lastly in 1995 he was awarded 
America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom 
from President Clinton.
  As a visionary, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and civil rights 
activist, Mr. Johnson's life has become one of the greatest ``American 
dream'' success stories of all time. Through his publications and other 
media ventures, Johnson has managed to transform the mainstream image 
and self-image of African Americans throughout the world. The legacy 
Mr. Johnson leaves is one of constant challenge. Throughout his life he 
has challenged and overcome the validity of old norms and has presented 
new ones that have helped to change both the face of African-Americans, 
as well as the face of our Nation.

                          ____________________