![]() ![]() Corporate advertisers who had previously shunned black ventures warmed to Mr. Johnson announced that his new magazine would celebrate black success and “mirror the happier side of Negro life - the positive everyday achievements from Harlem to Hollywood.” Ebony featured smiling women on its covers and included photo essays showing members of the African-American middle and upper classes who lived in tastefully decorated homes and enjoyed the same activities as white people - travel, skiing, tennis, drinking Coca-Cola. ![]() referred to this as an element of the “ degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’” that African-Americans endured daily at the hands of white society. African-Americans were virtually invisible in the white press at the time - unless they committed crimes - and were held in such contempt in the South that newspapers routinely denied them courtesy titles, including Mr. Johnson laid the foundation of an empire in 1945 by styling a new magazine called Ebony as a love letter to the black elite. ![]()
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