The story of America's first major Black media empire through Barbara Karant's documentary lens

Spreads and detail are reproduced from new release, 820 Ebony/Jet, Chicago photographer Barbara Karant's documentary love-letter to the onetime home of the Johnson Publishing Company—publisher of Ebony and Jet, among many other Black culture magazines, but also incubator and herald of all things Black-empowered and Black-generated. "Distinct colors and patterns gave each floor its own personality," Aaron Bryant writes of this 1971 landmark, designed by Chicago architect John Moutoussamy and styled by Palm Springs interior designers Arthur Elrod and William Raiser under the creative direction of John and Eunice Johnson. "Geometric abstractions and pulses of psychedelic colors also seemed inspired by the textiles of post-colonial diasporas. The result was, as architectural writer and photographer Lee Bey described, 'an exuberant, high-style and fearless mix of color, texture, art, contemporary furnishings and pattern' that were 'a perfect match for publisher John H. Johnson's groundbreaking magazines.' The interior mirrored a contemporary blend of African and American styles that conveyed a new vision of the African American past, present and future. Bright colors, ethnically inspired patterns and 1970s futurism produced a post–civil rights 'Afropolitan' modernism. Further, open and shared spaces created a corporate environment for building a community and culture of collaboration." Pictured here, a spread featuring Grace Jones, photographed by Moneta Sleet, Jr., for the May 16, 1983, issue of Jet; the cafeteria, where employees ate for only $1.00 a day, photographed for Ebony in 1972; a spread featuring Karant's photograph Floor 10 #6, taken between 2010 and 2012, after the company had relocated.

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