|
Or nearby, for the opening of a museum in his name in the little Arkansas town were he was born, Arkansas City. Here's the story that ran in our local paper.
* * * * *
(May 25, 2005, Dumas Clarion) A breeze blew through Arkansas City as hundreds of people gathered to honor the tiny man with a huge list of accomplishments and a giant spirit: John H. Johnson.
Johnson said Saturday that he left Arkansas City 70 years ago, only returning once for another event.
Born January 19, 1918, his father Leroy Johnson, was killed in a sawmill accident when he was eight.
His mother Gertrude Jenkins Johnson, was a great inspiration, always encouraging him to work hard.
Johnson finished eighth grade in Desha County, but there was no school for black children beyond that. His mother was determined that would not be the end. "My mother believed in me," Johnson told a crowd that easily topped 600.
She did not want her son's future to depend on an eighth grade education, and saved her earnings for two years to enable the family to make the move to Chicago. While she worked, she wasn't going to have her son sitting at home.
"You're going back to the eighth grade and you're going to stay there until I get enough money to go to Chicago," she told her son.
It only took one extra year, he said, a year in which he made the honor roll in his second year in eighth grade.
"You have to have someone who believes in you," he said. "That's why I've worked so hard - I'm not just doing it for myself, I'm doing it for my mother."
People were constantly asking her why she worked so hard for her son, and how she knew “the boy was going to amount to something.”
“I had to prove that the boy was going to amount to something,” he told the crowd. Her confidence wasn’t misplaced. He was an honor student at DuSable High School, where he was class and student council president and newspaper and yearbook editor. He also attended the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.
To start his publishing company, Johnson again turned to his mother, borrowing $500 on her furniture.
With that investment, and great determination, Johnson went on to control the nation's largest black-owned company, which has revenues today in excess of $140 million.
The publisher of Ebony, Jet, EM, Johnson also owns several other businesses, including Fashion Fair Cosmetics, Ebony Cosmetics, Supreme Beauty products, and three radio stations.
He also sponsors the American Black Achievement Awards television program and the Ebony Fashion Fair - a touring fashion show now in its 38th year.
He attributes much of his success to his mother, who believed that if you try hard enough, there is always a chance you can win.
His work is built around the idea that a business owner should "never talk about what you want; talk about what the customer wants."
And what black people wanted, when he was getting started, "was respect."
That led him to publication of Negro Digest, first published in 1942, with the loan from his mother, who was a seamstress at the time.
In less that a year, his subscriber list grew from 5,000 to 50,000.
In 1945, Johnson started his second magazine, Ebony, which focused on black successes and achievement.
Other magazines to follow were Jet, a weekly news magazine that has been published now for more than 40 years, and EM: Ebony Man, a "fashionable living" magazine for black men, which was started 11 years ago.
County Judge Mark McElroy said that he rushed back from a lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., for the county to make it in time for the celebration.
"We've had two President Bushes," he said, "But only one John H. Johnson."
"He is Desha County's shining son," McElroy added.
Johnson has shown poor youth from the Delta that "even though you may be poor and come from humble beginnings, you don't have to stay there," McElroy said.
His “humble beginnings” were in a home with no inside plumbing, that has been moved to the grounds of the Desha County Courthouse Annex.
When Johnson entered his newly-renovated childhood home for the first time in 70 years, he looked around and quipped, "Hmmm - someone should have paid the light bill.”
Herbert Lowe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, told Johnson, "We owe you so much."
"Many of us learned what it meant to be a journalist from Ebony and Jet," he added.
"It all started right here," he said, and added, to the youngsters present, "More than one journalist can come from Arkansas City. More than one entrepreneur can come from Arkansas City."
"You made journalism a better career, and you made America a better place," Lowe concluded
The John H. Johnson Delta Cultural and Entrepreneurial Learning Center, to be located at Arkansas City, and the John H. Johnson Delta Cultural and Entrepreneurial Complex will be located on the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff campus.
The UAPB center will develop programs and research to address economic and educational needs of the Arkansas Delta.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
