Forever Stamp for Ebony and Jet Publisher

By: Jenée Desmond-Harris | Posted: February 1, 2012 at 5:09 PM

The unveiling of the John H. Johnson stamp (Blanca Palomar/Steed Media Service)

Ebony and Jet magazine publisher John H. Johnson is being celebrated this week with the 35th stamp in the U.S. Postal Service's Black Heritage series. He'll join the ranks of previous honorees including Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Johnson -- who published Negro Digest, modeled after Readers Digest, before creating Ebony and Jet -- was also a counselor to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter.

It was Johnson who decided, in 1955, to publish the casket photos of 14-year-old Emmett Till's mutilated body after he was slain in Mississippi for flirting with a white woman. The images are widely credited with providing some of the impetus for the subsequent civil rights movement.

"I'm immensely proud that my father and his life's passion are being recognized in such a high honor as the Black Heritage Stamp," said Johnson Publishing Co. Chairman Linda Johnson. "His legacy lives on in all whom he touched and in the work we continue to do daily."

Check out the John H. Johnson Forever Stamp on Facebook , through Twitter or on the website Beyond the Perf .

Read more at CBS Chicago.

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