Johnson Publishing in Chapter 7

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This is a sad one.

Earlier this month, Johnson Publishing, a Chicago institution founded during the Second World War, privately owned by an African-American family, filed for bankruptcy court protection.

Johnson is probably best known for Ebony, a monthly general-interest magazine that featured successful black Americans -- doctors, public officials, bankers -- in a glossy magazine format. The company sold Ebony, and Jet, a sister publication, in 2016 in the course of a previous cash crunch. That sale earned it three more years, but this time it is down for the count.

This is a chapter 7 liquidation proceeding, not a reorganization.

It is worthwhile remembering now what may have been this company's finest hour: the publication in Ebony of an open-coffin photograph of Emmett Till. The image was an example of hard truths that need to be displayed. A human world that is more transparent to itself is likely to prove less beastly to itself than the world where acts such as Till's murder can hide in obscurity and silence.

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