It only cost 15 cents in 1951 and sold out its first 25,000 copies almost over night. Now the story goes that John H. Johnson, Ceo of Johnson Publishing Company, started Jet magazine with a $500.00 loan from his family. Well that’s partly true. The true part is that Johnson did borrow the money, but it was for his first magazine called ” The Negro Digest.” Right now you can see a theme Johnson put in all of his first publications. The title’s clearly indicated who he magazine’s audience was. The Negro Digest was first published in 1941. It did not do well at first. That is until Johnson met Joseph Levy, a magazine distributor who was impressed with him. Levy provided valuable marketing tips and opened the doors that allowed the new digest to reach newsstands in other urban centers. Within six months circulation had reached 50,000. This publication covered African-American history, literature, arts, and cultural issues. After several decades of publication its name was changed to Black World. The last edition of the magazine was published in 1976.
Because of Johnson’s success with the Negro Digest, readers flocked to his new publication Jet Magazine. It did okay for a black magazine. But in 1955 a story would break that would show America and the world the true meaning of racial hatred and bigotry. You see up until the middle part of the 20th century, it was the white media that disseminated a mostly white washed version of racially motivated crimes. It was just easier to get your news paper from the general store. Although there were a lot of blacks in the northern cities where black publications flourished, not so much in the south, where the bulk of black people still resided. Now don’t get me wrong. There were black publishers and newspapers everywhere, but none with the national footprint that Johnson would achieve with Jet and Ebony magazines. Did I say national? I meant international.
Johnson’s story is so rich with black history, you sometimes get off track with the many facets of black culture this guy touched. But let me get back to it. In 1955 Emmett Till was killed in that little $#@! hole town in Mississippi called Money. Although what happened is a matter of dispute depending on your race, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at some hot racist wife named Carol Bryant. Several nights after the incident, Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam went armed to Till’s great-uncle’s house and abducted the boy. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. They found him a few days later. Now usually I get emotional and start cussing when I relive this type of heinous racially motivated crime. So I’m not going to disappoint you. Those were some hot live wire, fully loaded, black hearted, mud stumping, sharp nosed, mississippi low back, 30 degree slant racist @!$$#!!. Okay, now I got that out my system…
Anywho, what Johnson would do after hearing about the senseless racist killing, no one had done before. He put the pictures of Emmett Till’s body in Jet. It sold over two million copies. The rest is history. Jet would go on to cover the Civil Right era like no other black magazine had done before. Not only Civil Rights, but prominent politician, doctors, lawyers and artist would be featured on its pages. Black America had a voice and Johnson gave it to them.
Now as an aside, although I love the articles, no red blooded black man would open up a Jet to its first page. In the center of every Jet would be a beauty of the week. Not some beauty pageant queen, but some ordinary young black sister from “anywhere” in the United States. Now they had a few beauty queens too, after all we were celebrating our blackness, and when some black beauty would win, we would show her off in Jet. But it was the everyday sister’s that made that made me pick it up… and yeah I liked the articles too:>) The model photo on the left is from 1954.
Johnson Publishing Company published the final print issue, June 23, 2014. In 2016, Johnson Publishing sold Jet and Ebony to private equity firm. After 77 years the owners of Jet and Ebony have declared bankruptcy. They have made plans to sell all of its assets. It was a great and historic run. Before we end this article, we cannot leave without mentioning the other man behind Jet. Robert E Johnson. He was the editor for over 30 years. He came on board in 1953 two years after its founding. The two Johnsons were not related. John H. Johnson died in Chicago August 8, 2005 at the age of 87. Robert E. Johnson died in January 1996, Chicago, IL. at the age of 78.
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