Tim Scott: “Today, we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Jet Magazine, and congratulate Mr. John H. Johnson and the Jet Magazine…”

“Today, we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Jet Magazine, and congratulate Mr. John H. Johnson and the Jet Magazine family on 50 outstanding years of covering African-American life. Both Ebony and Jet Magazine have meant a lot to African-Americans; it was a way for us to be connected as a community, at a time when there were few publications of widespread circulation devoted to African-American life. Many of us can remember the first time we glimpsed Jet and Ebony in our family homes, and learned about current events, and the lives and achievements of our fellow African-American. The success and longevity of Ebony and Jet Magazine are due to the vision, hard work and perseverance of John H. Johnson, the publisher, chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson Publishing Company. John Johnson began with a vision and an idea. When he was in his early 20's, he worked for the Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, then the largest African-American owned business in the North. One of John Johnson's jobs was to comb African-American newspapers and magazines from around the country, in order to brief the President of Supreme Liberty Life. John Johnson soon discovered that African-Americans were hungry for news of their own community--news that was broader than what was reported in the predominantly white media of the time, and news that was not, as Mr. Johnson remarked, 'only in connection with a crime.' So in 1942 John Johnson founded Negro Digest.”