John H. Johnson

John Harold Johnson (January 19, 1918 – August 8, 2005) was an American business executive and publisher. In 1942, he founded the Johnson Publishing Company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Johnson's company was among the most influential African-American businesses in media in the second half of the twentieth century, with the inception of print magazines, Ebony (1945) and Jet (1951) peaking at 9 million subscribers. Johnson was born into a poor family in Arkansas. In the early 1930s, during the eve of the Great Depression, which coincided with the Great Migration of African Americans out of the Southern United States, his family moved to Chicago. He became a standout student at DuSable High School, and received a scholarship to the University of Chicago. He worked for an African American owned insurance company in his early career and to put himself through university. Seeing a need for African American representation in American media, he founded his publishing company in the early 1940s and would remain its leader until his death in 2005. In 1982, Johnson became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400. In 1987, he was named Black Enterprise Entrepreneur of the decade. Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by United States President Bill Clinton in 1996.

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