Ebony Founder Gets Postage Stamp

John H. Johnson, the late entrepreneur and pioneering publisher of Ebony, Jet and other magazines, will be featured in the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage stamp series in 2012. Suggested Reading Iyanla Vanzant’s Decision Not To Attend Her Daughter’s Funeral Rev. William Barber: Why We Must Reclaim MLK’s Radical Vision Why Fewer Black Residents Are…

John H. Johnson, the late entrepreneur and pioneering publisher of Ebony, Jet and other magazines, will be featured in the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage stamp series in 2012.

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He joins a long line of distinguished leaders featured in the series, including Malcolm X, Roy Wilkins and Thurgood Marshall.

“We are proud to immortalize John H. Johnson as our latest inductee in our Black Heritage stamp series,” Stephen Kearney, manager of stamp services, said in a prepared news release. “He was the trailblazing publisher of Ebony, Jet and other magazines as well as an entrepreneur.”

In 1982 he became the first black person to appear on Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 400 wealthiest people in America. His magazines portrayed black people positively at a time when such representation was rare, and he played an important role in the civil rights movement. President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996.

Read more at Reuters.

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