Ebony, 1945 issue
On this date in 1945, the first issue of EBONY magazine was published in Chicago.
John H. Johnson started the magazine with a $500 loan on his mother's furniture. The first office of Johnson Publishing Co., which was then called Negro Digest Publishing Co., was on the second floor of the Windy City's Supreme Life Insurance Co. building in a room of a private law firm.
Soon Johnson bought the company's first building to house EBONY and its sister publication Negro Digest on South State Street in Chicago.
Ebony Magazine Special Issue-The Bicentennial
A Johnson Publication August 1975
Volume XXX No. 10
