Jet,Black, Brown and Tan
WBGO Exhibit Presents Classic Magazine Covers

Cephas Bowles, general manager at radio station WBGO-FM, the area’s preeminent Jazz station, said this to me recently: “Tell them it was marvelous, excellent.”He was referring to the fantastic pictorial exhibit that embellished the walls of the WBGO Gallery. Titled, “Jet, Black, Brown and Tan,” it is an exhibit of the beautiful covers of Jet, Ebony, Tan and Sepia magazines. I have used those very superlatives, i.e., marvelous and excellent, to describe the beauty of those covers and the story they tell of a man who dared to publish the positive aspects of his people.

Of course that man is none other than the late John H. Johnson, publisher extraordinaire. A black man, thank you very much. The covers go back to the 1950s up to the present.

That evening, as I strolled down the WBGO corridor, I mentally went back in time to when black was not only beautiful, but the celebrities who graced those covers behaved beautifully as well. And if they didn’t, they had the presence of mind to keep it on the down low, if you will.

There was, a very young-looking Sammy Davis Jr. (conked hair and all), the lovely Lena Horne and a youthful girls’ group known as The Ronettes who were discovered by Phil Spector. There were more. Lots more. If memory serves, within the pages of those magazines I learned just how awesomely brilliant Black people were. I recall the cover that depicted a grieving Coretta King holding her youngest child, Bernice, in her arms.

It was Jet magazine, if you recall, that showed the world the battered body of Emmett Till, an 11 year-old little boy from Chicago who went to Mississippi and lost his life because white folks said he whistled at a white woman.

His mother, Mamie Till, did not want a closed casket. She wanted to show the world what racists had done to her little boy. The photo won a Pulitzer for Ebony and circulated throughout the world. It was in Ebony that I saw a very gracious and very grand cover of the incredible Mary McCleod Bethune, in a black poodle cape thrown across her shoulders. I was a kid but I must have stared at that picture for about 40 minutes. It moved me—as did the cover picture of the late Constance Baker Motley. There was no Judge Hatcher back then. And this was the first time I’d seen a Black woman who donned a black robe to make rulings regarding other people’s lives.

Oh, yes, Brother Bowles is to be commended since the audience was told that night that it was he who was the catalyst behind this exhibit. I was there for the kick-off celebration. The ambience was wonderful. Food was great. Conversations were both animated and interesting. And, for me it felt like I was encapsulated into a bygone era, if only for a moment. John Johnson’s dream was equally important to the human family. You see, Jet and Ebony are not just good for black folks, no sir. They are also wonderful documents for those whites who choose to judge all of Black America by some of the ignorant rappers they see. Another story has been told. And it’s been told between the pages of these valuable magazines that have stood the test of time. Unfortunately the exhibit leaves WBGO on January 31, however, there is always a worthwhile exhibit at the WBGO Gallery. You can find out about what’s current and upcoming at www.wbgo.org.

The Ebony magazine exhibition was part of a collection housed at the African Heritage Museum of Southern, NJ in Newtonville, NJ, which was founded in 2003 by Ralph Hunter. Find out more at their website www.aahmsnj.org. James H. Johnson borrowed $500 in 1942 to build the nation’s most successful black publishing empire.

Rev. Nance is pastor of The Church by the Side of the Road in Passaic, NJ. She is also a radio talk show host and documentary filmmaker.
t_nance@hotmail.com