Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 18 August 2005 — Page 3

The Muncie Times • August 18, 2005 • Page 3

JOHNSON From page 1 Today, Ebony remains a tabletop magazine in many African American homes and offices. It is also available in some African countries as well as among African Americans stationed overseas. Another popular Johnson publication is Jet magazine, a weekly pock-et-sized mini-me version of Ebony. Johnson’s empire also includes Fashion Fair Cosmetics and EBONY Fashion Fair. Johnson is regarded as one of the country’s black major trailblazers. He is recognized as the founder of the African American consumer market. He died after an extend-

ed illness, in the same year that Ebony celebrated its the 60th anniversary. Under Johnson’s leadership, Ebony has been the biggest black-owned magazine in the world for 60 consecutive years. In 2002, Johnson named Linda Johnson Rice, the chief operating officer, CEO of the company, but retained the titles of company chairman and publisher until his death. Rice said her father was active in company affairs. "He was in his office and alert and active until the end. He was the greatest salesman and CEO I have ever known, but he was also a father, friend and mentor with a great sense of humor who never stopped climbing mountains and dreaming

dreams." Throughout his career, Johnson received several awards including, the highest civilian honor, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Magazine Publisher’s Association Publisher of the Year Award, the Advertising Hall of Fame Award, the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame Award, the National Business Hall of Fame Award, the Greatest Minority Entrepreneur Award, the Horatio Alger Award and the NAACP Spingarn Award. In 2003 Howard University in Washington, D.C., established the John H. Johnson School of Communications in his honor. In 2005 the John H. Johnson Delta Cultural

and Entrepreneurial Learning Center in Arkansas City was dedicated. Johnson received several honorary doctoral degrees from universities including Harvard University and the University of Southern California. Rice said, "This is a tremendously sad time for me personally, my mother and my daughter, Alexa, and for our company and its employees. However, we are determined to continue to move forward with the inspiring legacy he has left us." He credits the love and determination of his mother, the late Gertrude Johnson Williams for starting him on the road to success. He is survived by his

wife, Eunice W., secre-tary-treasurer of the company, and daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, president and CEO of Johnson Publishing. Funeral services were held Aug. 15 at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel in Chicago, followed by private interment. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the John H. Johnson School of Communications, Howard University, 525 Bryant St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20059, Phone: 202-806-7690, or the United Negro College Fund, 8260 Willow Corp. Dr., Fairfax, VA 22031-4511, Phone: 703-205-3400. continued on page 10

VOTE from page 1 mark law, will expire in 2007, unless Congress reauthorizes them and the president signs the bill before then. The information below is from the U.S. Justice Department’s Web site.) By 1965, concerted efforts to break the grip of statedisfranchisement had

been under way for some time, buthad achieved only modest success overall and in someareas had proved almost entirely ineffectual. Themurder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Miss., gained national attention, along with numerousother acts of violence and terrorism. Finally, the unprovoked

attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., en route to the state capitol in Montgomery, persuaded the president and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights legislation. President Lyndon Baines Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings began soon thereafter on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act. Congress determined that the existing federal anti-discrimination laws were not sufficient to overcome the resistance by state officials to enforcement of the 15th Amendment. The legislative hearings showed that the U.S. Department of Justice's efforts to eliminate discriminatory election practices by litigation on a case-by-case basis

had been unsuccessful in Amendment, applied a opening up the registra- nationwide prohibition tion process; as soon as against the denial or

one discriminatory practice or procedure was proven to be unconstitutional and enjoined, a new one would be substituted in its place and litigation would have to commence anew. Johnson signed the resulting legislation into law on Aug. 6, 1965. Section 2 of the Act, which closely followed the language of the 15th

abridgment of the right to vote on the literacy tests on a nationwide basis. Among its other provisions, the Act contained special enforcement provisions targeted at those areas of the country where Congress believed the potential for discrimination to be the greatest. Under Section 5, juriscontinued on page 10