[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 192 (Tuesday, November 2, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H6119-H6120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING THE LIFE OF JOHN H. JOHNSON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Danny K. Davis) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to come 
to the floor this evening for this Special Order, because I come to pay 
tribute to an iconic American, John H. Johnson, the founder of the 
Johnson Publishing Company, the founder of Ebony magazine, Jet 
magazine, Fashion Fair, three radio stations that he owned, a 
television station, and lots of other business interests and ventures.
  Growing up in southeast Arkansas during the 1950s and coming into 
contact with a Jet magazine or an Ebony that one of the schoolteachers 
may have in his or her possession or one of the ministers may have 
brought to town from wherever they came or the hairdresser may have had 
one or two, that was an exciting thing for a young African-American boy 
in the rural South.
  Little did I know that the man responsible for those products had 
grown up just a few miles away, or at least until he was in the ninth 
grade, John H. Johnson, Arkansas City, Arkansas. Close to McGehee; 
Dermott; Lake Village; Eudora; Greenville, Mississippi, all of those 
little towns.
  Of course, John H. Johnson was fond of being a storyteller. He used 
to tell the story of how his mother had told him: Johnny, when you 
finish the eighth grade, we are going to move to Chicago so that you 
can go to high school.
  Then when he finished the eighth grade, she told him: Johnny, I 
didn't save enough money for us to move, so you are going to have to go 
to the eighth grade again. And he told her: No, mom. That is all right. 
I will just go to work and help you save money. And she said: Nope, you 
are going to the eighth grade again.

                              {time}  2015

  And so as bright as he must have been and as bright as he was, he had 
to do the eighth grade twice. Of course, eventually they did move to 
Chicago. He did go to high school. As a matter of fact, he went to high 
school with Redd Foxx and with Nat King Cole, and Mr. Abernathy, who 
owned and built a taxi company. He even went to school with Professor 
Timuel Black, who just died a few weeks ago. Tim was 102. He released 
his last book 2 years ago when he was 100.
  And so John H. Johnson did go to high school at Phillips and DuSable, 
became president of his class, of course editor of the yearbook, editor 
of the school newspaper, and he was then offered a scholarship to the 
University of Chicago.
  Well, he wasn't sure that he could go because he wasn't sure that he 
would have enough money, even with the scholarship. But he made a 
speech at an Urban League dinner, and the fellow who owns Supreme Life 
Insurance liked it, and he hired him to come and

[[Page H6120]]

work for him. So he was then able to make use of his scholarship and go 
to school.
  After working for Supreme for 2 years, he actually became the 
president's assistant because he was so industrious and so bright and 
all of everything that he was.
  Then he decided he would go into business for himself, and so he 
managed to borrow $500 or make use of $500 that his mother let him have 
or use, and he started his publishing business, a little magazine. He 
developed it and got so good at it until he did another one.
  He developed the Ebony magazine; he developed the Jet magazine; and 
at the height he had 2,300,000 subscribers. He was zipping and zooming.
  Part of what propelled him was the fact that in 1955 when Emmett Till 
was mutilated, murdered, and killed, he published the gruesome 
photographs of Emmett Till, and many people proclaimed that that really 
jump-started in a serious way the modern day civil rights movement 
because as people saw the gruesomeness of the murder of Emmett Till, 
they became motivated, engaged, involved.
  It was the era that produced Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis, 
civil rights icons.
  But at the same time that Mr. Johnson was publishing his magazines, 
he was really projecting the positivity of African Americans, showing 
Blacks who were superstars, promoting the idea.
  The fact that he had to come to Chicago to high school was not really 
anything unusual. Many towns in the rural South at that time did not 
have high schools for African Americans. As a matter of fact, many of 
them didn't have any schools at all. Julius Rosenwald and Booker 
Washington teamed up and got with people in communities, and they built 
5,000 schools. They are called the Rosenwald schools. As a matter of 
fact, our iconic colleague John Lewis attended one of those. John went 
to a Rosenwald school.
  But John Johnson continued to develop his business and became so good 
at it; and he was a great storyteller himself. He didn't work as a 
journalist. He worked as a businessman. But he had stories that he 
could tell.
  I was so amazed to get to meet him and know him and live in the area 
where his cousin lived, who introduced me to him. I remember we were in 
a group, an organization, and somebody said we needed to raise $500 for 
something, and somebody said, well, why don't we ask Johnny Johnson for 
it? And his cousin, Miss Willie Miles Burns, who was the head of the 
subscription department and worked for him, held up her hand, and she 
said, Johnny Johnson, who is that? The fellow said, Oh, you know, the 
guy down there at Ebony. And Miss Burns said, Oh, you mean Mr. John H. 
Johnson? He ain't no Johnny Johnson. He is Mr. John H. Johnson. She 
said, He is my relative, and I call him mister every time I call his 
name.
  Well, obviously Mr. John H. Johnson continued to develop his 
businesses and ended up on the Forbes 400 as one of the wealthiest 400 
people in the United States of America. He received every accolade, 
every honor, every possibility of people acknowledging what he could do 
and what he had done.
  He used to tell a story about building a building, owning a building 
on Michigan Avenue, and he couldn't purchase it because the people who 
owned it wouldn't sell it to him. So he got a friend of his to purchase 
it for him. Even to this day, the legend in Chicago is that he has the 
only building on Michigan Avenue that has a driveway where you can 
drive in off the street and go through the building.
  Notwithstanding any and all of that, John H. Johnson was a very 
common man. You could walk up to him and talk with him. He went down 
every day and picked up his newspaper and had a conversation with the 
person who sold the newspaper.
  Of course, he ended up with all kinds of honorary doctorates, degrees 
from Harvard University, the University of Arkansas.

  I was thrilled and delighted to go down to Arkansas City with him 
when they decided to move the home that he had lived in from where it 
was located and moved it downtown to make a museum out of it. It was a 
two-room house, but it's called a shotgun house. Shotgun just meant you 
could open the front door and open the back door, and you could look 
all the way through, out into the back. Well, they moved the house from 
its location down to near the courthouse in Arkansas City, and that is 
where it currently is located.
  Of course, Mr. Johnson was given the Medal of Freedom by President 
Clinton. He was Man of the Year from the national Chamber of Commerce, 
the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP, all of this but still being a 
regular kind of person.
  Of course, the Congressional Black Caucus honored him. How could we 
not? He was obviously an icon who demonstrated that it really wasn't so 
much where you came from as much as it was where you were going. It 
didn't really matter what didn't exist. It was what you created. And he 
obviously was one of the most creative individuals. He had a book 
publishing company that Lerone Bennett wrote ``Before the Mayflower'' 
and published it.
  After all was said and done, John H. Johnson was an unusual man, an 
outstanding man that the poet may have been thinking of when he 
suggested that:

     If you can keep your head when all about you
     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
     If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
     But make allowances for their doubting, too;
     If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
     Or, being lied about . . . or being hated . . .
     And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.
     If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
     If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim,
     If you can meet with triumph and disaster
     And treat those two impostors just the same . . . `'

  Well, John H. Johnson, a man who will always be a historic figure, 
who gave so much to America. Two years ago the Arkansas General 
Assembly decided to make November 1 a State holiday, honoring a native 
son, as November 1, 1945, was the date John H. Johnson launched Ebony 
and thats the ideal date to celebrate his legacy.
  Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Johnson for what he meant not just for 
Arkansas but what he meant for America.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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