Jason P. Chambers
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041426
- eISBN:
- 9780252050022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041426.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
John H. Johnson was a titan of 20th century business. Starting from humble beginnings, Johnson created two of the most successful magazines in American history (Ebony and Jet) and built a personal ...
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John H. Johnson was a titan of 20th century business. Starting from humble beginnings, Johnson created two of the most successful magazines in American history (Ebony and Jet) and built a personal fortune made him one of the richest people in America. Yet the strategic decisions Johnson made that led to his successes is much less recognized. This chapter examines how Johnson made key strategic decisions and choices that enabled him to build the Johnson Publishing Company into a major media force. Additionally, it analyzes the choices Johnson made as he grappled with critics of his publishing tactics, other black publishers whose businesses competed with his own, and distributors who refused to carry his products regardless of the financial benefit to them for doing so.
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John H. Johnson was a titan of 20th century business. Starting from humble beginnings, Johnson created two of the most successful magazines in American history (Ebony and Jet) and built a personal fortune made him one of the richest people in America. Yet the strategic decisions Johnson made that led to his successes is much less recognized. This chapter examines how Johnson made key strategic decisions and choices that enabled him to build the Johnson Publishing Company into a major media force. Additionally, it analyzes the choices Johnson made as he grappled with critics of his publishing tactics, other black publishers whose businesses competed with his own, and distributors who refused to carry his products regardless of the financial benefit to them for doing so.
Jonathan Fenderson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042430
- eISBN:
- 9780252051272
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042430.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter recounts the circumstances surrounding John Johnson’s decision to discontinue Black World and terminate Hoyt Fuller. It recalls the broad national outcry and subsequent efforts by the ...
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This chapter recounts the circumstances surrounding John Johnson’s decision to discontinue Black World and terminate Hoyt Fuller. It recalls the broad national outcry and subsequent efforts by the Black intellectual community to replace the magazine with the short-lived journal First World. More than just an attempt to chronicle the life and death of a seminal Black periodical and its short-lived replacement, the chapter elucidates how these magazines’ respective trajectories embodied larger shifts and rifts among Black intellectuals and within the Black Arts movement. In recalling this history, the chapter explores the very meanings of Black intellectual community in the 1970s while paying close attention to intraracial class politics. In essence, it argues that the slow demise of Jim Crow exacerbated preexisting class (and ideological) divisions within the Black intellectual community, and these divisions, once inflamed, had a tremendous impact on Black institutions and the shape of Black intellectual praxis.Less
This chapter recounts the circumstances surrounding John Johnson’s decision to discontinue Black World and terminate Hoyt Fuller. It recalls the broad national outcry and subsequent efforts by the Black intellectual community to replace the magazine with the short-lived journal First World. More than just an attempt to chronicle the life and death of a seminal Black periodical and its short-lived replacement, the chapter elucidates how these magazines’ respective trajectories embodied larger shifts and rifts among Black intellectuals and within the Black Arts movement. In recalling this history, the chapter explores the very meanings of Black intellectual community in the 1970s while paying close attention to intraracial class politics. In essence, it argues that the slow demise of Jim Crow exacerbated preexisting class (and ideological) divisions within the Black intellectual community, and these divisions, once inflamed, had a tremendous impact on Black institutions and the shape of Black intellectual praxis.
Robert E. Weems and Jason P. Chambers (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041426
- eISBN:
- 9780252050022
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041426.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book examines the entrepreneurial experiences of and contributions by African American entrepreneurs in Chicago. Through a careful examination of black business activity in areas such as ...
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This book examines the entrepreneurial experiences of and contributions by African American entrepreneurs in Chicago. Through a careful examination of black business activity in areas such as finance, media, and the underground economy known as “Policy,” this work illuminates the manner in which blacks in Chicago built a network of competing and cooperative enterprises and a culture of entrepreneurship unique to the city. This network lay at the center of black business development in Chicago as it allowed blacks there greater opportunity to fund and build businesses reliant on other blacks rather than those whose interests lay outside the black community. Further, it examines how blacks’ business enterprises challenged and changed the economic and political culture of the city to help fashion black communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.
For much of the 20th century, Chicago was considered the single best demonstration of blacks’ entrepreneurial potential. From the time the city was founded by black entrepreneur Jean Baptiste DuSable and throughout the 20th century, business enterprises have been part black community life. From DuSable through black business titans like John H. Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, and Anthony Overton black entrepreneurs called the city home and built their empires there. How they did so and the impact of their success (and failure) is a key theme within this book. Additionally, this work analyzes how blacks in Chicago built their enterprises at the same time grappling with the major cultural, political, and economic shifts in America in the 19th and 20th century.Less
This book examines the entrepreneurial experiences of and contributions by African American entrepreneurs in Chicago. Through a careful examination of black business activity in areas such as finance, media, and the underground economy known as “Policy,” this work illuminates the manner in which blacks in Chicago built a network of competing and cooperative enterprises and a culture of entrepreneurship unique to the city. This network lay at the center of black business development in Chicago as it allowed blacks there greater opportunity to fund and build businesses reliant on other blacks rather than those whose interests lay outside the black community. Further, it examines how blacks’ business enterprises challenged and changed the economic and political culture of the city to help fashion black communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.
For much of the 20th century, Chicago was considered the single best demonstration of blacks’ entrepreneurial potential. From the time the city was founded by black entrepreneur Jean Baptiste DuSable and throughout the 20th century, business enterprises have been part black community life. From DuSable through black business titans like John H. Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, and Anthony Overton black entrepreneurs called the city home and built their empires there. How they did so and the impact of their success (and failure) is a key theme within this book. Additionally, this work analyzes how blacks in Chicago built their enterprises at the same time grappling with the major cultural, political, and economic shifts in America in the 19th and 20th century.
