I hadn't heard of John Harold Johnson, the founder of EBONY magazine but his Obit in the Chicago Sun Times is inspiring.
Mr. Johnson, 87, who died Monday of heart failure at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, offered his own life up as Exhibit A for black material success -- if he could make it, he argued, others could.
And make it he did. He was named by Forbes Magazine as one of the 400 richest people in America, with a personal fortune in excess of $100 million. The South Michigan Avenue headquarters he constructed for his empire in 1972 is still the only black-owned high-rise in downtown Chicago.
He encouraged blacks not to lose themselves in grand schemes, but to "dream small dreams, because very often when you try to see things in their largest form, you get discouraged." He never thought he'd be rich, he said.
The key to his success, he said, was simple: "I was lucky, the timing was right, and I worked hard."
Mr. Johnson believed in sidestepping racism by being smarter than his opponents. After being turned down by a white owner who didn't want to sell property to a black man, Mr. Johnson hired a white lawyer to negotiate the sale.
The lawyer told the owner that he represented a large Eastern publishing firm, and that the firm would send its head of maintenance around to inspect the building. Then Mr. Johnson, dressed as a janitor, in work clothes and carrying a flashlight, examined the building before buying it.
Mr. Johnson relished his success. His office at Johnson Publishing, 820 S. Michigan, took up the entire 11th floor and was dubbed "probably the most lavish" executive suite in Chicago in the mid-1970s, with suede walls, a silver-plated telephone, and a typewriter trimmed in red alligator. The office had its own bedroom suite and exercise room with walls and floor done in red goat hair.
The Beatles' John Lennon, visiting with his wife, Yoko Ono, said the suite was better than Buckingham Palace, and asked if they could come back the next day.
It's an interesting life story if you have time to read the whole thing.
1 comment:
Race pervades America. I would argue that every white person raised in America is racist to some degree. You can't get around it. At one time in my life, I read a number of novels and autobiographies by black authors and attended a two-day racism awareness workshop with whites and blacks. It opened my eyes to the fact that I am as racist as the next guy, and that I had black friends and didn't actively discriminate were themselves racist notions. This is still very much a white male European culture, even if a George Jefferson or Oprah or Tiger Woods squeaks through here and there.
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