John Johnson: Imprint On History

When the Rev. Jesse Jackson was growing up, images of blacks in popular culture consisted mostly of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. That was before John H. Johnson began his media empire.

"He put a human face on African people," Jackson recalled Monday. "The media projected us as less intelligent than we were, less hardworking, less patriotic, more volatile, less worthy.

"But John Johnson affirmed us with a clear mirror and clear water. We were not ugly - the water was dirty, and the dirty mirror gave distorted images of who we really were," Jackson said.

Tributes to Johnson, who founded Ebony and Jet magazines, poured out Monday during a packed funeral that drew among others Jackson, Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and former President Clinton.

Mourners filled the 1,500-seat Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago for the 2½-hour service. Johnson died Aug. 8 of heart failure at 87.

Obama said the positive images of blacks that Johnson placed in Ebony and Jet inspired blacks across the country to strive to become doctors, lawyers and politicians.

"Only a handful of men and women leave an imprint on the conscience of a nation and on the history that they helped shape," Obama said. "John Johnson was one of these men."

Born to a poor Arkansas family, Johnson started his publishing business with a $500 loan secured by his mother's furniture and built a publishing and cosmetics empire that made him one of the wealthiest and most influential black men in the United States.

Johnson launched Ebony in 1945, at a time when blacks had little political representation and enjoyed scant positive media coverage. The magazine's circulation of 25,000 a year grew to a monthly circulation of more than 1.6 million last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Jet magazine, a newsweekly founded in 1951, has a circulation of more than 954,000. Along with Ebony and Jet, Johnson Publishing owns Fashion Fair Cosmetics, a high-end line of cosmetics, and JPC Book Division, which publishes books by black authors.

Johnson also donated millions to historically black colleges and the civil rights movement, and he took pride in mentoring young people.

"John had a dream of black people who were successful and smart and beautiful and heroic," said Mr. Clinton, who nine years ago awarded the fellow Arkansas native the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The funeral had lighter moments as well - such as when a friend of the family reminisced about Johnson's love of bubble gum ice cream, and broadcaster Tom Joyner's frustration at never being able to catch his former boss out of a suit and tie - even on weekends.

When Johnson's casket - covered in red roses - was taken out of the church, the orchestra played the jazz classic "Take the 'A' Train."

Johnson is survived by his wife, Eunice, a daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, president of Johnson Publishing Company Inc., and a granddaughter, Alexa Rice.

"John, your legacy will never die," said former President Clinton. "It lives on because you became great by showing the greatness and the goodness in others."

By Tara Burghart