NOTE--This informational blog is compiled by (with the exception of the introduction and photograph) and reprinted with permission from Abdul Akalimat, PhD
"The Johnson Publishing Company produced iconic magazines including Ebony and Jet and its archive is regarded as one of the most significant collections of 20th century Black American culture. The archive contains around 5,000 magazines, 200 boxes of business records, 10,000 audio and visual recordings, and 4.5 million prints and negatives that chronicle Black life from the 1940s until the present day—not only preeminent figures like Muhammed Ali and Aretha Franklin, but also scenes of ordinary life like high school graduations and vacations, which weren’t often documented or celebrated in other publications.
After the publishing company filed for bankruptcy in 2019, a consortium comprising five institutions including the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Smithsonian Institution purchased the archive. Getty committed $30 million in support of the processing and digitization of the archive, which will make the collection available to scholars, journalists, and the general public like it never has before.
Last year, ownership of the archive was officially transferred to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and Getty. Since then, the two institutions have been laying important groundwork so that this fall, the monumental task of digitizing the entire archive, making it available it to a brand-new website, and moving the materials to their new home in Washington, DC, can truly begin."
Souce: Progress Digitizing the Johnson Publishing Archive, a Vast Resource in African American History | History News Network
Official Annoucement
The Ambitious Plan to Open Up a Treasure Trove of Black History | Getty News