The Press: The Brighter Side

"Sure, you can get all hot and bothered about the race question," says 28-year-old Negro Publisher John H. Johnson. But Publisher Johnson doesn't intend to. His new magazine, Ebony, out this week, will "mirror the happier side of Negro life."

Ebony, which imitates LIFE'S format, has an adless first printing of 50,000 copies. On its editor's theory that "most white magazines deal with Negroes as second-class citizens or freaks," Ebony wants to show how normal they are. Most of its heroes live in a happy world of ready cash: Eddie Anderson, whose subservient role as Jack Benny's valet RoChester is anathema to...

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