Against the backdrop of Jim Crow, Ebony magazine addressed African American cultural and political realities. From the lives of Hollywood celebrities to the ongoing fight for human and civil rights, Johnson Publishing Company publications documented key moments in African American life that changed how we think about ourselves as a nation.

Public Value and Meaning

The Supreme Court made decisions on several key cases, including Morgan v. Virginia (1946), ruling that segregation on interstate travel by bus in Virginia was unconstitutional. In Shelly v. Kraemer (1948) and Hurd v. Hodge (1948), the Court nullified restrictive housing covenants. In the case of Henderson v. the United States (1950), the Court ruled against segregated dining cars on trains, and in Sweatt v. Painter (1950), the Court ordered that Heman Sweatt, an African American law school applicant, be admitted to the University of Texas Law School, after the university tried creating a “separate but equal” law school for black applicants. In this case, the Court found the "law school for Negroes" unequal in several key areas, including a smaller faculty and library, course variety, and fewer opportunities for legal writing, which would keep black students from fairly and equally competing for opportunities in the field. This period of challenging Jim Crow segregation laid the groundwork for what later became the modern Civil Rights Movement. 

Key to Ebony’s success was a roster of photojournalists who documented and communicated cultural symbols and values through images. They produced decades of visual commentary on black life and achievement to redefine photojournalism and reflect how black communities saw and imagined themselves. Through a unique visual voice and cultural lens, these photographers also chronicled black trials and tragedies, to look beyond the image’s surface and find its truth and humanity. Behind each Ebony photograph is a life and story that gives each image its value and meaning.

By redefining the American narrative and shifting perceptions of black history and possibilities, Ebony mobilized national communities around critical periods of social change and became a medium for shared cultural symbols and perspectives. It reinforced a common past, present, and future that bonded readers through shared experiences and aspirations. Ebony was a vehicle for social interaction, self-naming, and validation, which defined the magazine's cultural value and private meaning to the communities it served.

Private Value and Meaning

Johnson Publishing photographers led the way by picturing their subjects with intimacy. Important moments received in-depth coverage from the company’s bureaus around the country. Within each photograph, there exists intimacy between photographer and subject that, on a smaller scale, conveys a feeling of unguarded poise and ease. These images are simultaneously iconic and personal. Behind the walls of segregation, and the self-doubt they attempted to impose on black lives, there exists grace within the mundane and rapture amidst quiet and solitude. In Maurice Sorrell’s photograph of Benjamin Mays, for example, from temple to shoulder, light confers the former Morehouse president with a resonant wisdom, regality, and acuity. His poise as stalwart and synonymous with enlightenment as the texts that surround and inform his life.

In a duet between the photographer’s lens and the trust bestowed upon them by their subjects, there exists a psychological closeness due to their unique proximity that no other publications matched. The golden moments of melancholy and contemplation exemplified by Moneta Sleet Jr.’s photograph of Billie Holiday, with her head tilted, her chin cupped gently in her palm, and her attention traveling elsewhere. These photographs pull warmth from the image’s grayscale and in the distance between the camera and its subject’s contemplative presence, empathy walks along this meaningful exchange.

Who would one allow in the room as subjects sing the praises of their souls? Who would one trust to witness such vulnerability? If lives could be sung, these photographs capture the beauty of the song while reminding us of the solace of kin and the importance of sovereignty over one’s self. Sidney Poitier playfully raising his daughter to the ceiling during a moment of pure joy. Maya Angelou writing in bed, with books lying in idle orbit. Things too often denied the descendants of the enslaved flush with introspection amidst acts of self-care and solemnity. Here the intimate lives of public figures are braided with an everydayness synonymous with our own striving, sorrow, joy, and peace, all enveloped by cultural trust. There are rooms we will never see here and spaces, if only in their minds, they will never lay bare for public consumption. What remains is a legacy of respect for the sanctity of black life.

The Johnson Publishing Collection

The Johnson Publishing Company Archive was acquired in 2019 by a not-for-profit consortium that consists of the Smithsonian Institution, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The collection includes 3.35 million negatives and slides, 983,000 photographic prints, 166,000 contact sheets, and 9,000 audio and visual recordings. The consortium seeks to preserve, study, and digitize the Archive and to make it broadly accessible to the public.

John H. Johnson and the Johnson Publishing Company

Image Top: Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the "Fight of the Century" at Madison Square Garden, New York, March 1971. Moneta Sleet Jr./Johnson Publishing Company Archive

All photos are from the Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution.