Ebony Magazine - published its first issue on November 1, 1945. The first issue of Ebony magazine featuring profiles of writer Richard Wright and jazz singer Hazel Scott, and stories about African Americans in publishing, the color line in Brazil and a sale of African art in Philadelphia.
Ebony became an immediate success. Founded only two months after the end of World War II, the magazine reflected African Americans' postwar determination to claim their rights as equal citizens. John H. Johnson, the founder of the magazine, wrote in 1975 that "Ebony was founded to provide positive images for blacks in a world of negative images and non-images.

The monthly magazine chronicles Black life in America, including the fight for civil rights, and provides a forum for African Americans to reflect on and celebrate their own communities.

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Ebony grew in popularity through the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s, the magazine was said to have reached more than 40 percent of Black adults in the U.S. Corporations, initially reluctant to advertise in a magazine for a Black audience, soon bought into Ebony's success. In 1982, John H. Johnson earned a spot on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans, the first Black man to do so. On the 75th anniversary of the magazine, LeRonn P. Brooks of the Getty Research Institute wrote, "there is no more important archive of twentieth-century African American life and culture" than Ebony.