John H. Johnson served presidents, and his people

Understanding African-Americans' need for their well-rounded news and the entrepreneurial potential of that market was the unsurpassed vision of the Johnson Publishing Co.'s pioneering founder. The accomplishments of "the world's largest African-American owned and operated publishing company" are magnified by the fact that crime news was all most white-owned media carried about blacks in the Jim Crow world of 1942, when he established his Negro Digest.

But John H. Johnson, who died Monday at 87, never lost focus on portraying all the dynamics of the black American experience. By the time his newsy Jet weekly magazine debuted in 1951, the family-oriented Ebony magazine that he and his wife, Eunice, had established in 1945 was surging to its 12 million-monthly readership. The magazines have chronicled black accomplishment and progress in every endeavor. Meanwhile, Mr. Johnson's marketing savvy took him from giving people what they need to selling them what they want. The Ebony Fashion Fair is the world's largest traveling fashion show, with its Fashion Fair Cosmetics tops worldwide in makeup and skin care for women of color.

It took Mr. Johnson years of perseverance to attract any of the major advertisers that now covet black business. Yet he established a multimillion-dollar empire and a brand trusted worldwide while serving presidents and family and dignifying his people. His 11-story Michigan Avenue corporate home was the first building constructed in Chicago's Loop by an African-American man since Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable built his log cabin along the Chicago River in 1722.

The industry giant stayed focused during the civil rights and black power movements, and unlike too many recent exploiters never descended into misogyny to sell. His legacy lives in the company's CEO, daughter Linda Johnson Rice, and his example that linked the advocacy of Frederick Douglass with business acumen and inspired countless others. For more than 60 years, Mr. Johnson proved that he was a race man in all the best senses.