Also American
Struggle & ResistanceAchievement & Excellence

November 1945

Zoom out
Achievement · business
John H. Johnson launches Ebony magazine, building a Black media empire

John H. Johnson launched Ebony magazine in November 1945 after the success of Negro Digest, creating the first mass-circulation Black lifestyle magazine. Johnson Publishing Company went on to launch Jet (1951) and became the largest Black-owned publishing house in America, reaching millions of Black households for decades and making Johnson a billionaire.

Events

  1. November 1945
    John H. Johnson launches Ebony magazine, building a Black media empire

    John H. Johnson launched Ebony magazine in November 1945 after the success of Negro Digest, creating the first mass-circulation Black lifestyle magazine. Johnson Publishing Company went on to launch Jet (1951) and became the largest Black-owned publishing house in America, reaching millions of Black households for decades and making Johnson a billionaire.

  2. November 26, 1945
    Charlie Parker and the birth of bebop on record

    Parker's "Ko-Ko" session — with Gillespie and a young Miles Davis — captures bebop as a recorded revolution.