John H. Johnson and the Black Magazine
By Dick Gregory
Let me tell you a story about Jet magazine.
In the late 1970s, I went to the African country Uganda, which was falling apart under Idi Amin. His rule was over, and he had left a mess. I wanted to see about helping sick and hungry folks over there. I got on a plane, and then onto a bus. Things were crazy, with people fighting for control of the country. A group of men made everybody get off the bus I was on. And the saddest thing was: suddenly I was looking at a nine-year-old African child with a gun, who walked up to me and said, “Get up on the sidewalk.”
A man on a bicycle jumped off and said, “Dick Gregory! Dick Gregory!” He looked at that little punk packing the gun and said, “Get outta here. You know who this man is?”
And how did the man on the bicycle know who I was? Jet magazine.
That man said to me, “I see all your work, brotha. I just … ” And he started crying. Because he had read about me in Jet.
Jet and Ebony magazines exposed black people to the world—not just the negativity but the positive things, too. We got to see black folks we had never seen, hear about black folks we had never heard of. Let’s say your sister was a judge. How would I know that? Because Jet magazine put it out there. Let’s say your daddy was a scientist in California, but I’m in New York. How would I know? The New York Times wouldn’t mention it. So we looked at Jet and said, “Wow, this is positive stuff, not just the negative stuff about black folks that the white press was talking about.” Ebony and Jet had black photographers taking pictures of people and things that white photographers wouldn’t even have thought of.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/09/26/john-h-johnson-black-magazine/#nws=mcnewsletter
