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 a...
