Margena Christian on Chicago’s Fox 32
Lecturer Margena A. Christian, Ed.D., was on television station Fox 32 Chicago on Monday, July 22, to discuss her new book, Empire: The House That John H. Johnson Built. This marks the fourth television appearance and the latest of many other events related to the book's publication for Dr. Christian.
John H. Johnson founded Johnson Publishing Company, which put out Jet and Ebony magazines for over six decades. The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and its archives are currently being auctioned. Those archives contain a wealth of historically significant material specifically about African Americans, including luminaries like Billie Holiday, Muhammed Ali, James Baldwin, and many others.
Dr. Christian, among others, hopes that the archives will end up in the right hands so that this important piece of American history will not remain hidden away in a private collection. That is not what Johnson would have wanted, says Christian. "Mr. Johnson, as we called him, always said, ‘I am not for sale.'"
Watch the segment with Sylvia Perez on the noon news, and read Dr. Christian's recent quotes in the New York Times and Town & Country coverage of the Johnson auction. Read more from Dr. Christian on her website.