John H. Johnson

Biography Early years and education

John H. Johnson was born in Arkansas City, Arkansas, to parents Gertrude (died 1977) and Leroy Johnson (died 1926) both the children of slaves. Leroy died in 1926 in a sawmill accident. Johnson attended a segregated school and completed middle school in 1932. He then repeated the 8th grade to save up to move to Chicago to further his education. His family moved to Chicago at the time of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, during the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South. To make the move possible Gertrude left her husband in Arkansas, though they would later reunite. His family spent many years living on welfare, this would be, according to Johnson, one of his biggest motivators. When Harry Pace, president of the Supreme Life Insurance Company, heard Johnson's speech, he was so impressed with the young man that he offered Johnson a job so that he would be able to use the scholarship. Johnson began to wonder if other people in the community might not enjoy the same type of service. He conceived of a publication patterned after Reader's Digest. His work at Supreme Life also gave him the opportunity to see the day-to-day operations of a business owned by an African American and fostered his dream of starting a business of his own. He eventually met his Wife Eunice Walker in 1940 while she was attending Loyola University for a master's degree in social work. They got married on June 21, 1941, in Selma, Alabama, and would adopt 2 children John Harold Johnson Jr in 1956 and Linda Johnson in 1958, Johnson Junior would pass away at the age of 25 in 1981 from sickle cell anemia. Writers attended Southern church meetings, offering insider civil rights perspectives. People considered Johnson's decision to publish Till's photograph his greatest moment. Michigan congressman Charles Diggs recalled that given the emotion the image stimulated, it was "probably one of the greatest media products in the last 40 or 50 years". Because of the reach of Ebony and Jet president Dwight D. Eisenhower met with Johnson, this would start a pipeline of information in which every single subsequent president to his death met with Johnson to form a relation with the man Lyndon B. Johnson described as “the only man who can get 20 million people to listen to you.” The show toured over 200 cities across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, raising between $47 and $51 million for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and other Black charities. File:JOHNSON_PUBLISHING_COMPANY_ON_MICHIGAN_AVENUE_IN_CHICAGO_THE_BLACK_OWNED_FIRM_PUBLISHES_EBONY,_JET,_BLACK_WORLD..._-_NARA_-_556249.jpg This is the headquarters for the Johnson publishing company at 820 Michigan st. It is the first and still only black designed building in downtown Chicago. As he did with all of his business ventures he turned to guerrilla tactics to get the brand rolling. His brand would make its way into the Chicago and New York City malls where he would again pay people to buy out initial shipments. His next task was selling in the south, he would do this by going uninvited to a luncheon to honor Neiman-Marcus CEO Herbert Marcus where he would set up a meeting with him. His meeting would consist of dinner and a visit to the traveling Fashion Fair show that happened to be in Dallas at the time. This day would secure his inclusion in Neiman-Marcus south. His connections to the Dillards board and CEO would further his expansion into the south.

Honors and awards Johnson won many awards, and was honored with many positions. He was an initiate of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Chicago-based Theta chapter, in 1938. In 1951, he was the second African American to be selected as one of the ten Young Men of the Year by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. In 1961, he was appointed special ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire's independence ceremonies, and in 1963 to Kenya's. Over the years Johnson had devoted a portion of several issues of Ebony to articles relating to African independence movements, but in August 1976 he dedicated an entire special issue to the subject "Africa, the Continent of the Future". In 1977 he was named the most outstanding Black publisher in history by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. In 1984 he was named Chicagoan of the year. In 1987, Johnson was inducted into the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame, Publishing Hall of Fame, and the Black press Hall of Fame. Also in 1989 he received the PUSH foundation's international humanitarian award. Alfred C. Sykes, chairman of the Center for Communication, and president of Hearst Media Technology, said| "Mr. Johnson is a role model for many young people today, an example of how hard work, commitment and belief in oneself can lead to outstanding achievement. He rose from disadvantaged circumstances to achieve success in both business and national service during a time when great obstacles were placed in his path."

Death, funeral and legacy On August 8, 2005, Johnson died of congestive heart failure. At the time of his death, Johnson was survived by his wife, daughter Linda Johnson-Rice and a granddaughter. His son, John Jr. died in December 1981 after a long battle with an illness related to sickle cell at age 25. Following his death, a public viewing of his body was held at Johnson Publishing Headquarters on August 16, 2005. Johnson's funeral was held at University of Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel where an estimated 3,000 people attended, including former U.S. president Bill Clinton, future U.S. president Barack Obama, and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson. Bill Clinton, who spoke at Johnson's funeral was quoted saying "Out of the swarm of hardworking, family-loving men and women carving out their own version of the American dream, one man stood out because his dream was bigger and he had a vision for how to achieve it." On January 31, 2012, the United States Postal Service honored John H. Johnson with a commemorative stamp as the newest addition to its Black Heritage Series. The School of Communications at Howard University was to be named in his honor but instead, the $4 million donation was used to endow a chair in entrepreneurship. Johnson was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2013.

The John H. Johnson Museum and Educational Center was founded in 2004 in Arkansas City by Desha/Jefferson counties and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The 2019 John H. Johnson Day events featured Linda Johnson Rice, Dr. Margena A. Christian, Rodney Slater, and Mayor Frank Scott Jr., with awards for entrepreneurship, journalism, and humanitarianism.