When I was a child, I would pick up Ebony and JET magazines from my grandmother’s and other people’s coffee tables and flip through them.

I was not only enthralled by the in-depth stories-I was an avid reader-but also I was blown away by the classic photography. These two magazines were addictive for me as a young girl, they were the only ones where I could get a gander of some of the most beautiful Black people and most amazing stories about “us.” It was all so professionally done, with a keen eye and sensitivity for developing photos and stories that inspired me to desire journalism as an art form.

Lerone Bennett Jr., a brilliant Chicago journalist who chronicled African-American history in a variety of ways, is best known in our inner circles for his edgy and inspiring articles and stories about Black history and all of the key players involved at the time. They weren’t making history, they weren’t making news, they were hard-working people … advocates of freedom and justice and equality for Black Americans, and it was not a fun thing to do. I am certain Bennett himself never imagined that he would receive the lifetime achievement accolades that he did, especially not in his own home state of reared white supremacist Mississippi. But he eventually did.

Says Ebony Media CEO Linda Johnson Rice, “He gave Ebony its voice and its perspective on empowering African-Americans, and also was very much a champion of civil rights … the stories we covered on civil rights and from a historical perspective really came from … Lerone Bennett. And everything that he did, he did with class and with style. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know Lerone Bennett. I grew up in the business and he was always there. I watched him work side by side with my father to create the editorial direction at Ebony. What Ebony stands for today really stands on the foundation of what Lerone Bennett envisioned for the magazine and what he championed for the many years that he worked with us.”

Born in Clarksdale, MS, also the hometown of Morgan Freeman by way of information, Bennett grew up in Jackson MS. He attained a bachelor’s degree in 1949 from Atlanta’s Morehouse College, alongside classmate Martin Luther King Jr. He served in the Korean War, then returned to the United States to pursue a career in journalism. He worked as a city editor for the Atlanta Daily World, and by 1953, he was living in Chicago and working as an associate editor with Johnson Publishing’s Jet magazine. He was on the Board of Trustees at Columbia College and the Chicago History Museum. President Bill Clinton appointed him to The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and President George W. Bush named him to The Presidential Commission on the proposed National Museum of African-American History and Culture, which is now a living structure in Washington D.C. on the National Mall. Bennett also sat on the Chicago Public Library’s board while Harold Washington was mayor.

His work at JET and Ebony in the 1950s as a Senior Editor told the deeper and more solid and rooted stories about the Civil Rights crusades of the 1950s and 1960s. He interviewed and recorded many stories about Dr. King, the bus boycotts, and so many “Black history” events of the time, which historic monuments were the actual stories of our lives. Bennett was also a visiting professor of history at Northwestern University.

His works include:
“Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America”, 1962
“What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King”, 1964
“Confrontation: Black and White”, 1965
“The Challenge of Blackness,” 1970
“The Shaping of Black America”, 1975
“Harold’s Journey,” a musical for theater and local television
“Forced Into Glory,” 2000 – the most controversial of them all with regard to Abraham Lincoln’s legacy as a racist and opportunist.

He also co-authored “Succeeding Against the Odds,” with John H. Johnson, a book which traced Johnson’s rise from modest beginnings in Arkansas to the creation of a multimillion-dollar African American media corporation. Bennett became Ebony’s Executive Editor in 1987 and retired in 2003, though he continued to work after retirement.

I am proud to have lived through today’s moments in Black history, which is yesterday’s headline news. It would take a volume of multitudinous books to describe the phenomenal and outstanding impact that Ebony, JET, and Bennett’s lifelong work had on our lives at the time.

A longtime resident of the Chicago Southside neighborhood of Kenwood, Bennett, 89, died at home of complications from vascular dementia on Feb. 14, according to his daughter Joy. He was preceded in death by his wife of 53 years, Gloria (in 2009), and a son, Lerone II, who died of lymphoma in 2013.

Bennett is survived by his daughters, Joy, Constance, and Courtney, and three granddaughters.

Visitation will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, February 23 at A.A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home, 318 E. 71st St., Chicago. It will continue at 10 a.m. on February 24 at St. Columbanus Catholic Church, 331 E. 71st St., Chicago, followed by a memorial service at 11 a.m.

REST IN POWER.

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