Poll: Can the ‘Family Jewels’ be Saved?

Ebony and Jet made us talk about us and tell the family jewels.

Salon and barbershop visits would be incomplete without looking at one or the other and then offering up a topic straight from their pages to everyone within earshot.

“Isn’t so and so a hot mess?”

“Do you think that boy will do jail time for hitting that girl?”

But, that’s only a smidge of what Ebony and Jet did for us. They also featured stories about black folks with influence and affluence who inspired many of us to dream big things. We could see ourselves at swanky black society events in our haute couture courtesy of the Ebony’s features and Eunice Johnson’s Fashion Fair.

What boy (or man) didn’t look forward to the Jet Beauty of the Week? What girl didn’t wish she were an HBCU homecoming queen? We all wanted our job promotions featured, and even our weddings.

Those were the good things. And then there were a few bad things like the photo of some sporting life man “diggin’ the scene with a gangster lean ” while interned in his Cadillac casket.

Now the tradition known as Ebony/Jet is slowly deteriorating before our very eyes. Ebony is still in print but in peril of becoming extinct as Johnson Publishing Company fights a major battle with creditors to stay alive. (Read Legacy on the Line, Chicago Business)

We love to talk about the life and death of print. We love to talk about the relevancy of digital media. Yet, we are not talking about saving the family jewels – our heirloom jewelry – like Ebony and Black Enterprise.

Is it even possible?

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