Launched in 1945, Ebony was the black Life magazine, a startling concept at a time when African Americans were denied civil rights in many states and social equality virtually everywhere. Ebony represented the aspirations of an emerging black middle class, but also made great strides in presenting and popularizing African American history—a subject relegated to passing mention in pre-1990s textbooks. E. James West explores that aspect of the magazine through the career of Lerone Bennett Jr., a figure who deserves more recognition for his role in raising consciousness on the contributions of blacks to American society and culture. Bennett’s work was among the inspirational factors behind the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s even though, as West notes, militant activists derided Ebony as bourgeois.
