Word: johnson
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Anyone who is 67 years old and has a personal fortune of more than $150 million has a right to relax. But then, John Johnson is not just anyone. "I run scared," says the wealthiest black businessman in America. "I came from the welfare rolls of Chicago." Still driven by the restless ambition that pulled him out of the ghetto, the chairman of Chicago-based Johnson Publishing, the largest U.S. black-owned company (1984 revenues: $139 million) works twelve-hour days and shows no signs of slacking off. Not content to preside over Ebony and Jet magazines, three radio stations...
With an initial circulation of 200,000, EM is a risky proposition for Johnson, particularly at a time when magazine advertising revenues are sluggish. A rival publication, MBM: Modern Black Man, has a year's head start, and several other magazines aimed at black men have folded in recent years. But no one in the industry is underestimating Johnson, whose 40-year-old Ebony has a circulation of 1.8 million. Says Don Jackson, president of Chicago's Central City Marketing: "Johnson will convince advertisers. I think Ebony Man's going to make...
...Ebony/ Jet Showcase!, a half-an-hour weekly magazine show heavy on celebrity interviews, is Johnson's second effort to break into television programming. Briefly in 1982, he produced a similar program called Ebony/ Jet Celebrity Showcase but pulled it off the air because he was dissatisfied with the quality of the guests. This time around he has a blockbuster lineup. Since the show premiered in September on 60 stations, it has featured Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Cosby, Aretha Franklin and Little Richard...
...young man, Johnson realized that taking risks was the only way to rise above the crowd, especially for a black. In 1939, while still an office boy at Chicago's Supreme Life Insurance Co., he pawned his mother's furniture for $500 and sent letters to 20,000 of the company's customers, inviting them to subscribe to a proposed magazine called Negro Digest. About 3,000 people sent in $2 each, and Johnson was on his way. Negro Digest lasted only twelve years, but a second Johnson magazine, Ebony, quickly became the journal of black America. Packed with news...
...Johnson is proof of what an astute businessman with a sense of black pride can accomplish. He dines occasionally at the White House and is an important contributor to such politicians as Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and Illinois Governor James Thompson. Yet Johnson has never been completely comfortable with his success. Says he: "I live with the knowledge that it's possible to fail, and I try so hard that...