The small dreams of a business giant

Young John lived in one of those shacks. His family's house in particular had three rooms and an outhouse — a common layout in the 1920s. The young man knew of only one Black person whose home had a toilet — a builder whose claim to fame was having built most of the white people's houses in the town. That builder even had a car, which wowed little John almost as much as the toilet's operation — he and the homeowner's daughter would constantly flush it, wondering where the water went. This small but wondrous luxury became cemented in the back of the young man’s mind — a small dream that one day he, too, could have it.

These amenities and pleasures found their way into Johnson's small dreams and daily life, which was rather simple and uncomplicated despite some of the hardships that he and his family endured. His mother Gertrude only had a third-grade education due to having to work on a farm picking cotton rather than attend school. Still, the boy admired her, always feeling that his mom was "the smartest woman in the world" who wouldn't let her lack of education inhibit her. Johnson didn't know much about his father Leroy, who was killed in an accident at the all-important sawmill when the boy was young. His mother remarried when Johnson was nine. His stepfather, James Williams, like his birth father, was a sawmill worker, and their relationship was good — Johnson would later say that the two "never had a cross word” between them. Johnson felt like an only child even though he had a half-sister, Beulah Lewis. She was 14 years older and went to another city to become a teacher after finishing high school, so the two weren’t close. Even so, life at home was nice enough for a poor Black child in a depressed town. Johnson just wanted a little more comfort.

Then, on April 24, 1927, the deluge began.

While walking home from Sunday service at St. John Baptist Church, Johnson and his mother noticed something strange — everyone was moving frantically.

"Every living thing around us — man, woman, and child, dog, cat, and chicken, Black and White — was running," he noted in his 1989 autobiography, “Succeeding Against the Odds.” "We didn't know it then, but this was the beginning of the worst flood in American history."

When news first broke about the levee failure 30 miles away on the Mississippi River, residents were advised to take their money, belongings, and pets, but soon after, another message came that implored the citizens to escape with only their lives. A cacophony of terrifying sounds bombarded 9-year-old John: dogs barking, screams and heavy footsteps of panicked townspeople, the roar of rushing water not far behind. Determined to get him to safety, Gertrude gripped his hand "so hard I thought it would come off," he later remembered. She lifted him up the side of the levee and was greeted with the shocking sight of countless hands, "black, white, brown, yellow hands — reaching out to us, pulling us to safety," Johnson vividly recounted in his autobiography. It was an instance of unity among races who aimed only to stay alive, an image that would stick with Johnson throughout his life. Even animals like foxes, deer, and quail emerged from the floodwaters to make it to dry land. Sitting among so many desperate beings atop a muddy hillside, Johnson feared losing or being separated from his mother. The dream shifted to one thing: survival.

Alongside the people of Arkansas City, the pair spent six weeks on the levee before the waters receded. The American Red Cross came to their rescue with food, water, blankets, and tents. They distributed the supplies without regard to race, an observation that garnered profound respect and gratitude to the agency from the young man. Since all the houses had floated away in the 20-foot-deep waters, the Red Cross offered to refurbish all of the homes that could be recovered, and the ones that could not be found would be replaced.

"I kind of hoped we would have lost our house," Johnson joked years later during a one-on-one oral history interview with the National Visionary Leadership Project, a group that preserves and shares the histories of African American elders. "I said a prayer every night that they couldn't find my house."

But find the house they did.

The large, slithering snakes and other pests that John and Gertrude feared while on the levee had overrun the dwelling. The Red Cross officials kept their word — they cleaned and moved their entire house back to its original location, ending the pair's six-week ordeal of the Great Flood of 1927. The dream of survival had been achieved.

Whatever the reason, the Johnson family received government assistance from 1934 until 1936 — not in the form of money, but food. When the agency's trucks came into the neighborhood to dole out food, the family was embarrassed — having to rely on welfare felt like a defeat. Independence and dignity were what Johnson’s parents longed for, and this longing weighed heavily on his heart.

"It's not so much the pain in the belly, it's the pain in the soul," Johnson stated in his autobiography, musing on the hunger that he had to feed his own sense of pride and self-worth more than his family's lack of food. Once again, the dream changed, only this time it swelled into a massively important one —to emerge from the poverty that was crushing his spirit.

During this period, Johnson delved deep into his studies. Upon starting at Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable High School in Chicago, his classmates made fun of him due to his ragged "mammy-made" clothes and strong southern accent. Rather than making it a barrier to learning, Johnny considered it "the best thing that ever happened to him."

"It made me determined to get back at them, and the only way I could get back at them was to be smarter than them," he said.

The teasing spurred him to study harder than ever. Johnson began to practice his public speaking in front of the mirror each day, which proved to be invaluable during his junior year at Du Sable. He was the only student confident enough to give speeches and assert himself in front of his classmates and faculty. This show of confidence and high self-esteem led to Johnson being elected as junior and senior class president, student council president, and editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. The move to Chicago was very positive for the bourgeoning scholar, proving that his mother's decision to take him there was the right one.

Du Sable was a breeding ground for many future Black success stories — among Johnson's classmates were Harold Washington, Chicago's future mayor, actor and comedian Redd Foxx, crooner Nat "King" Cole, and Dorothy Donegan, the future pianist and vocalist. Johnson was aware that the school system was instrumental in students' successes because of the teachers there.

His academic experience was transformative, and his hard work bolstered his sense of pride and self-worth, especially as the family achieved the goal of getting off of welfare. Johnson’s stepfather was able to find work due to FDR's New Deal public works program, and he himself got part-time work in the National Youth Administration, another New Deal initiative. Johnson would praise the New Deal as a framework that helped many Blacks at the time.

"There was no other way to survive," he later said. Johnson had already survived during the flood, and thanks to his hard work and resourcefulness, he continued to prove that he was a survivor.

The now 18-year-old graduated from Du Sable in 1936. Having earned a fistful of scholastic honors and also honed his public-speaking prowess, he was offered a scholarship to attend the University of Chicago. Unfortunately, the scholarship was only worth $200, and Johnson became, in his words, "crestfallen." However, he had also been offered a few oratory opportunities, such as being the commencement speaker for his graduating class.

One speaking engagement at a dinner held by the National Urban League, a civil rights organization aimed at helping African Americans achieve economic and social justice, proved to be a turning point in Johnson’s life. Harry H. Pace, the president of the Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, was in attendance. Johnson had long known of Pace and considered him to be his hero. Supreme Liberty was the biggest Black business in Chicago, and Pace was a legend among men, "one of the most interesting figures in the history of Black America," Johnson said in his autobiography.

Pace spoke at the gala, which honored high school students who had excelled in their studies. As soon as Pace had finished his speech, Johnson approached the businessman and showered him with praise and adoration. Pace told the young scholar that he had heard much about his academic performance. He proceeded to ask Johnson about his post-graduation plans, to which he expressed his desire to go to college despite not having the money to do so. Pace offered him a job on the spot, and Johnson excitedly accepted.

The recent graduate briefly attended the University of Chicago but quickly found it more advantageous to learn from Pace and master the inner workings of Supreme Life, so he dropped his collegiate studies.

"My real school from 1936 to 1941 was the University of Supreme Life," Johnson stated in his autobiography. "I wouldn't recommend this approach today. A college degree is a basic necessity."

While he would soon become an entrepreneurial success, Johnson felt that in the realm of romance, he was "not, to put it mildly, one of the great catches of 1940." In his book, he mentioned that he continually struck out with members of the opposite sex, and it wasn't until he met a young Talladega College student, Eunice Walker, that his luck began to change. People were telling Walker that she was wasting her time with Johnson because he was "of doubtful background" and was not considered one of the young Black professionals who were most likely to succeed, but she felt much differently.

According to Johnson, in comparison to other women he had been interested in, he was attracted to Walker not only romantically, but intellectually.

"Our relationship was not just a romantic fling — it was also a meeting of the minds on what was going on in the world,” he said. “She was a good listener, sympathetic to my ambitions. She made me feel that — maybe — I would be somebody one day."

After Walker graduated from Talladega and then earned a master's degree from Loyola University Chicago, she and Johnson were married in Selma, Alabama on June 22, 1941. From then on, Eunice remained a shining beacon and supportive partner throughout John's journey.

Now a married man, Johnson knew he needed to stay focused and gain as much experience as he could at Supreme Life, continuing to study under Harry Pace’s tutelage. While his path was not the one he suggested for others, it was his first step onto what he'd call "the big ebony road that changed and defined my life."

One of the builders of that road was Pace.

In addition to teaching Johnson about finances, business, and life skills like driving, Pace also introduced him to publications focused on Black communities.

Harry Pace was fair skinned but identified as Black. His son and daughter went to the University of Wisconsin, where they both found partners who were white. Because of this, Pace moved out of the Black community and into a predominantly white one. As a lawyer living in a white community, he didn't take any Black newspapers or magazines home.

As editor of Pace’s internal company magazine — which catered to Blacks — Johnson was allowed to subscribe to numerous papers and magazines, which he used to become knowledgeable about various Black social happenings.

For Pace, Johnson’s work provided him a way to speak intelligently to the people who came into his law office. But for Johnson, the reading provided him a compilation of ideas important to Black communities.

At social gatherings, Johnson would ask people about what they knew or read, and many were unaware of the events of which he spoke.

The lack of awareness combined with Pace’s influence led to Johnson contemplating a new dream: a magazine that focused on the happenings in the Black Community.

"I know about Reader's Digest, so how about a 'Negro Digest?'" Johnson recalled thinking years later.

Only Johnson and his wife Eunice thought it was a good idea. His mentor, Pace, was interested, but when he was asked to sit on the magazine's editorial board, Pace advised against it. Of the big names that Johnson wanted on his board, which included civil rights activists Walter White and Mary McLeod Bethune, Pace was the one who refused, saying, "All of us have lived a long time and we've made a lot of enemies. If you put our names on the magazine, it wouldn't sell anyway, so why don't you just put out a good magazine without having the baggage of the enemies that the editorial board had made?"

It was advice that Johnson took. He headed to the First National Bank with the idea to obtain a loan in order to start the magazine. When he applied for the money, the white loan officer there said, "Boy, we don't do that." Johnson humbly asked if there was "anyone in the city who would loan $500 to a colored boy," to which the man responded, "Yeah, only one place."

At the Citizens Loan Corporation located at 63rd and College Grove, the single caveat to Johnson's approval for the loan was that he needed collateral, something he had no prior knowledge of. It was explained that he needed to offer something of value that he paid for, such as furniture or a car. Feeling somewhat defeated, Johnson left to contemplate his next step.

After years of hard work scrubbing and washing, as well as a little financial help from her son, Gertrude had finally made enough money to buy new furniture. Johnson approached her with an appeal to mortgage her items as collateral to obtain the start-up loan for his magazine.

Recounting this moment years later, he laughed, "For the first time, she said, 'Son, I don't know anything about any Black magazines and I worked hard for this furniture. I don't want to give it up. I'll have to consult the Lord about this.'"

That answer was unsatisfying to Johnson, and he asked again days later.

The letter stated that the magazine was offering a charter subscription for only $2 for a year, provided it was sent 30 days from the receipt of the letter. The marketing stunt worked — Johnson received 3,000 responses with $2 each, which was enough to get the magazine started. Humorously, he would recount to an interviewer about subscribers asking, "By the way, who told you about me?" The jovial yet to-the-point businessman admitted, "Nobody told me about you."

Johnson Publishing Company put out the first publication of Negro Digest on November 1, 1942.

"The magazine was an immediate success," the newly minted publisher determined. This was the biggest dream that Johnson had ever dreamt, and having achieved it solidified his determination. Ever since he and his mother made it off of the welfare rolls, Johnson vowed that he'd "never go down that road again — never." The Negro Digest, he said, was a down-payment on that dream.

Johnson had come face to face with his biggest and most frightening dream. He began to reflect on all of his decisions and hard work that led him to this life-changing moment.

"A person who comes up from poverty, up from segregation, up from outhouses, up from welfare and humiliation and knows, can never feel secure, no matter how high he rises," he said in his autobiography. "When I held the first copy of the magazine in my hand, I had a feeling of relief, exhilaration, and fear. I hadn't realized the true potential of the magazine until that moment."

Johnson worried about how he would make it to the next dream that he would inevitably have.

"Would the new magazine take me there? Would it even make enough money to finance a second issue? Most important of all, and most frightening of all, would I disgrace my mother before her friends?" he recalled.

Those fears were assuaged as the first published issue "opened a vein of pure black gold," selling about 3,000 copies. Johnson had “produced this miracle with smoke and mirrors,” but he knew that he couldn’t rest — he needed money to pay the printer, who “discovered on publication day that he'd made a sizeable investment in a new and decidedly unpromising company.” After giving it some thought, Johnson began looking in the Yellow Pages, where he came across the office of the Charles Levy Circulating Company, the biggest magazine distributor in Chicago. Johnson met with the prominent magazine distributor Joseph Levy, who was wary of the magazine and thought no one would buy it.

"Johnson, we don't handle colored books," Levy said with a straight face.

Johnson began to get angry, but quickly realized that he needed to be smart in order to get what he needed from the businessman. He then asked, “Is that because you’re prejudiced or because colored books don’t sell?” Levy rose with “anger and indignation” and stated, "Johnson, I'm Jewish. I don't believe in prejudice. It's because colored books don't sell."

Johnson went back to his office at Supreme Life and came up with a brilliant marketing scheme. In order to get the magazine on newsstands, he had 20 friends personally ask them to carry it. When sellers relented and called distributors, Johnson's friends quickly bought them up. Johnson then resold them. He called it “a new and novel civil rights march.” It proved to be a successful plan — Levy called Johnson up and said, "I've been getting calls from my dealers. Maybe, Johnson, I'll try a few of those books, about 500."

With Levy’s financial backing, Johnson deployed the same strategy in other cities. Levy also provided marketing ideas that helped the fledgling publication to hit the newsstands in other urban centers. Within a year, Negro Digest had a circulation of 50,000.

The magazine featured positive stories about the Black community. It was patterned after the successful Reader's Digest, but focused on African -American history, literature, arts, and cultural issues. Seeing the success of his new venture, Johnson was ready to take the magazine to new levels with an unprecedented move.

The magazine founder implemented a new column titled, "If I Were a Negro," which asked prominent white citizens for solutions to Black problems. He dared to ask First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to contribute to the column. With World War II in effect, it was a longshot, but persistence was key.

During this tumultuous time, Johnson noticed that white people were telling Black people not to press for equality.

He thought, "If they were Black and they had children, would they want to wait until the war was over until their children could have a quality education? I don't think so."

With this in mind, Johnson wrote a letter to Roosevelt asking for her participation, hoping for her insight into what she would do if she were Black. The First Lady initially said that she was too busy to do it, but Johnson persisted. About a month later, he wrote to her again and got the same answer. Soon after, Johnson read that the First Lady was in Chicago making a speech at the nearby Stevens Hotel, so he sent her a telegram saying, "While you're in Chicago, maybe you'll have time to write [the article]." That same day, Roosevelt had lunch in the area and said she'd just dictated another article. One of her aides then said, "Maybe you ought to try to do that article for that Johnson fellow."

The First Lady did as Johnson asked. In her article, she wrote, "If I were a negro, I would have great bitterness, but I would also have great patience." These words were sensational when the article was finally sent to print. A news release was sent to the newspapers in the north and south.

According to Johnson, "the southern papers all picked up the part where she said, 'great patience,' and the north said, 'great bitterness.'" He stated that almost overnight, Negro Digest's sales went up from 50,000 to 100,000 nationwide. He called it a turning point in the publication's success, and it was all due to his persistence. Johnson surmised that if he had not continued after Eleanor Roosevelt, she would not have written the article.

“I’d like to feel that it was an understanding,” Johnson told an interviewer after being asked about the honesty of Roosevelt and his other white guest columnists.

The success of Negro Digest was the culmination of Johnson's largest dream to date. It soon became evident that it was time to dream even bigger.

Johnson had read Black newspapers up to that point and noticed that they all had the goal of getting rid of racial prejudice, calling to attention all of the mistreatment of Black people around the country and the world. He began to get tired of reading about that important, yet bleak, heavy topic all the time.

"I wanted to be happy some of the time," Johnson admitted.

It was then that he decided to create a new magazine that wasn't doing what the others were doing well but would "deal with the positive things in life." It was time to focus on things that Blacks were proud of, to showcase their victories, "so that people in one city could see the successes of people in another city and would be inspired to do better in their own city."

Coming on the heels of his landmark digest, Johnson published the first issue of Ebony on November 1, 1945. Fashioned after Life magazine and named by Eunice Johnson after the dark wood, Ebony covered the lifestyles and accomplishments of influential Black people, fashion, beauty, and politics, and was dedicated to "making people feel good, making people feel proud of their heritage." Johnson said the new magazine was the first time he had ever seen a Black person in a tuxedo in a print publication, or even a Black wedding. It covered some of the community's difficulties, but its goal, according to Johnson, was "to say, 'I want to feel good about myself.'"

Johnson's instincts were right. Black Americans flocked to pick up their copy of Ebony's first issue, whose press run of about 25,000 sold out immediately. The second printing sold just as fast, making the inaugural issue a collector's item. The magazine’s advertising promoted general merchandise as well as products like hair straighteners aimed at Blacks, and Zenith electronics, the magazine’s biggest and most profitable advertiser. In many ways, it was the antithesis of what was expected of a Black-focused publication at the time — it was glamorous, uplifting, flashy, and positive.

Ebony was meant to "show not only the Negroes, but also white people, that Negroes got married, had beauty contests, gave parties, ran successful businesses, and did all the other normal things of life," Johnson stated.

After Johnson Publishing Company's success with Ebony, the dream grew a bit larger with the November 1, 1951 publication of Jet. Billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine," it was a smaller magazine that, like its larger counterpart, was dedicated to "news coverage on happenings among Negroes all over the U.S. — in entertainment, politics, sports, social events as well as features on unusual personalities, places and events." It was also Johnson Publishing Company’s first trademark, and the August 19, 1952 registration made the original “down-payment" that started with Negro Digest and Ebony truly official in the eyes of the government.

Johnson wanted the magazine's name to symbolize "Black and speed."

"Everything is moving along at a faster clip," he wrote in Jet's first issue. "There is more news and far less time to read it. That's why we are introducing our news-magazine Jet: to give Negroes everywhere a weekly news magazine in handy, pocket-sized form. Each week we will bring you complete news coverage on happenings among Negroes all over the U.S.."

Like Ebony, Jet could not stay on the shelves: sales were topping 300,000 copies and quickly establishing the magazine as the biggest Black news publication in the world. Its popularity was touted by famous Black entertainers and personalities. Comedian Redd Foxx called the magazine "the Negro Bible," and writer Maya Angelou wrote in one of her plays, "If it wasn't in Jet, it didn't happen."

Before the age of 35, John Johnson had become the leading Black publisher in the U.S. with two of the most widely read magazines in the world.

By 1955, John and Eunice were making their dreams come true.

They had been so busy building their business that they "didn't have time to build a family. Then, when we wanted children, we couldn't have any," Johnson recounted in his autobiography.

The couple decided to go to an Illinois adoption agency to begin the process of meeting a child they could call their own. After a year of waiting, in June 1956, they were able to take their 2-week-old son, John Harold Jr., home.

"He cried all night and slept all day. Eunice and I took turns walking the floor but we were so proud to have him that we never complained," Johnson proudly remembered.

Two years later, the Johnsons went back to the same agency and adopted a 2-week-old girl whom they named Linda Eunice. Now a unit of four, they had built the happy family of their dreams. Soon after, however, the happiness transformed into sorrow.

John Jr. started to have colds and fevers that wouldn’t go away. The Johnsons took their son to their friend, Dr. Edward Beasley, who ran tests to find out what was happening with the boy's health. The doctor reluctantly told the couple that John Jr. had sickle cell anemia, a chronic hereditary blood disease that occurs primarily among Africans and persons of African descent. The elder John was stunned — he had never heard of the disease and didn't know what to make of it.

"He went on to say a lot of big words I didn't understand about abnormal hemoglobin causing red blood cells to sickle, but I understood the end product,” John Sr. said, “Enlarged spleen, anemia, lethargy, joint pain, blood clot formation, and death."

Beasley explained that there was no cure for sickle cell.

"Most of the victims die before they reach the age of 30. I know this is sad news for you, but it's the best I can tell you,” the doctor said matter-of-factly. “The adoption agency should have tested for sickle cell before they gave the child to you."

Brokenhearted and “in a daze,” Johnson left the doctor's office and called the adoption agency. He asked the woman on the other end of the line, "Miss, why didn't you give our son a test?" She replied, "Well, you know, we really overlooked that. It's our fault and we'd be happy to take him back and give you another child." The response was far from what Johnson wanted to hear, and he angrily said, "Lady, you've got to be crazy. He's my son. He's been in my home two years. I don't care what he has, I'm not giving him up. I am just saying that you ought to do these tests for other people."

John Jr. lived 25 years before he succumbed to the disease. Johnson said many times that he believed the Lord sent John Jr. to them so they could prolong his life.

"We suffered most of those 25 years and we were blessed in what Gladys Knight calls 'the pain and the glory,' because there was always pain, and yet, there was always happiness and glory," he said, admitting that after many years, "It's hard, even today, for me to talk about it without breaking down."

The experiences of raising John and Linda, while difficult, caused Johnson to grow as a person and as a publisher. He stated that he had a greater awareness of the need for strong family units and his interest in adoptions would be reflected in the number of stories Ebony did on families and adoptions.

With Ebony and Jet, Johnson sought to promote an aspirational middle-class life. Some people felt that these more lighthearted periodicals were trying to downplay the more serious issues that the Black community faced, but just as many were happy to see a brighter side of life.

That's not to say that Ebony and Jet did not focus on Black America's most important topics. In fact, Johnson had already made very brave decisions with his magazines in the name of civil rights.

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Mississippi boy, was abducted, tortured, and lynched in 1955, after being accused of whistling at a white woman in her family's grocery store. His brutal murder and his killers' subsequent acquittal brought outrage and attention to the violent persecution of Black people in the United States. Johnson sent his photographers to cover the story and Till's funeral.

Ebony and Jet were publishing the company's large archive of civil rights photos and coverage, including the only photographs of Till in his casket. One shocking photo’s caption in Jet noted that Till's mother requested the mortician not retouch her son's mutilated face because “she wanted ‘all the world’ to witness the atrocity.”

According to Johnson, various news outlets called him to ask to buy a bundle of the photos, which he refused.

"No, you should have taken them when it happened. Don't even offer me any money, because there's no amount of money you could give me that would make me do it," Johnson stated with indignance.

In the 1960s, both magazines began to play an even more important role in the Civil Rights Movement.

A young minister and activist by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. had been leading marches against inequality from city to city, which he said the white press all but ignored. King decided to call Jet editor Bob Johnson (no relation), hoping to put some eyes on his events.

According to John Johnson, King said, "Bob, they're ignoring us down here. Tell your boss that I want him to send you and the best photographer down," asking for coverage for all of his events. Johnson agreed, and so he sent Bob and a news crew down to Mississippi. From then on, wherever King was, whatever the event, Ebony and Jet were there.

“We were a part of a story that cannot be recalled or told without referring to the pages of Ebony and Jet and the two million photographs in our archives," Johnson later recalled.

Race relations were hostile in Mississippi, so Ebony hired a white photographer to document white people, and a Black photographer to cover the Blacks there. The photogs would meet at night and exchange their work and the coverage. John and the rest of the crew were proud of the alliance with King and felt that they were making a welcome impact.

After King's assassination on April 4, 1968, Johnson and Ebony would mourn the slain activist with an "In memoriam" issue, which featured the many well-known and important images from King's life. Another special issue was published in August 1969, which "voiced the disappointment and desperation of Black Americans in the face of a decade whose first half included the March on Washington and whose second half saw the bitter assassination of the biggest hero of the Civil Rights Movement," according to an Ebony.com article titled, “The Blacks of the 1960s.” At that point, Ebony and Jet had played vital roles in the movement, and Johnson vowed to continue to fight alongside the people.

Johnson declared in Ebony’s 1969 special issue, "Black people have been forced now into the position where they must either fight for their rights or be reduced to a permanent second-class citizenship. Black people have chosen to fight and this special issue examines the many facets of that fight. Here, Black leaders, Black philosophers, Black activists and Black historians discuss The Black Revolution in terms that Black people can understand. We feel that this issue is must reading for anyone seeking an insight into Black America in its most crucial period in history."

As Johnson Publishing began to grow, the well-established Ebony and the newest weekly Jet ended up facing lots of competition from other magazines. Johnson put out another one called Hue, with the intent of staving off the copycats. Later came Tan Confessions, a romance magazine, which initially started as a big seller but was discontinued when the "confessional" craze died off.

For younger people, the company released Ebony Jr., which faced some problems due to not knowing which families had children, making a mailing list difficult to maintain. The publisher lost $200,000 over the course of five years, which led to its cancellation. There was also the Ebony Man spinoff magazine, but it also reached its limit and was shuttered.

The flagship publications had also cannibalized his original success — Negro Digest ceased printing in 1951 with the advent of Jet.

About these losses, Johnson said in the oral history interview, "The secret of business is when the time comes and it's not selling, you got to cut your losses and leave, but many Black people wait too long." He continued, "When white people are not making money, they stop, and sometimes, I think they're stopping too fast."

Johnson's entrepreneurial prowess and dreamer's spirit continued to grow, so he ventured to diversify his business empire with the creation of Fashion Fair Cosmetics and Ebony Fashion Fair, a touring fashion show directed by his wife Eunice. He also bought three radio stations and founded a television production company.

In 1989, John decided to write his autobiography in which he told his life story and reflected on his successes. Indeed, he had accomplished a great deal. Due to his influence in the Black community, Johnson was invited by the U.S. government to participate in several international missions. In 1959, Vice President Richard Nixon invited him on a mission to Russia and Poland. Johnson was also appointed special ambassador to represent the U.S. at the independence ceremonies in Côte d'Ivoire in 1961 and in Kenya in 1963. Johnson developed relationships with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and in 1996, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In addition to these triumphs, Johnson had already become the first Black person to own property on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, an all-electric building noted for being the first Chicago loop building exclusively designed and constructed by a Black-owned corporation. Johnson's business acumen also led to him becoming a financial advisor to singer Michael Jackson.

The small dreams of his youth had become gargantuan by the time he reached the age of 64. Johnson had risen "from the welfare rolls to the rolls of the 400 richest Americans" when he became the first Black American on the Forbes list in 1982, an achievement that he was very proud of.

"I've never counted, but I don't quarrel with the figures listed in the Forbes 400 — and I don't apologize. Whatever the correct figure, I earned it, and I'm still earning it," he stated. "I work harder today than I did when I started out."

John Harold Johnson worked hard and built a long-lasting business empire that he sat atop until 2002 when he promoted his daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, to chief executive officer of Johnson Publishing.

At the time of his death on August 8, 2005, Ebony magazine had reached 10 million readers and built an early online presence, and Johnson Publishing was the world’s largest Black-owned and -operated publishing company with an annual revenue of more than $388 million.

Johnson's empire was built upon a series of small dreams that gradually got bigger over time, and his legacy is one that encourages people to continue to dream.

An essay in the 1949 issue of Ebony titled “Why Negroes Buy Cadillacs” summed up the importance of aspirational thinking.

“It cannot but do every Negro’s heart good to see one of their number driving the finest car, wearing the finest clothes, living in the finest home. It is a worthy symbol of his aspiration to be a genuinely first-class American," the magazine noted.

The boy who had once dreamt of having better clothes, living in a nice home with a toilet, and going to college worked and aspired to be more than the circumstances into which he was born, and as he accomplished each of these things, his dreams grew and he became proof that everyone, regardless of race, could achieve greatness.

"Each time you accomplish a small dream, it gives you the incentive to go on to a bigger and bigger and bigger dream," he explained to the Visionary Leadership Project. "I never dreamed of a building like this, I never dreamed of a company like Johnson Publishing Company. I dreamed of one little thing at a time. I dreamed of Negro Digest selling a few more copies. I dreamed of going from $25 a week to $100 a week. I think you have to dream small dreams."