Sepia (magazine)
Sepia was a photojournalistic magazine featuring articles based primarily on achievements of African Americans. The magazine was founded in 1946 as Negro Achievements by Horace J. Blackwell, an African-American clothing merchant of Fort Worth, Texas. He had already founded The World's Messenger in 1942. George Levitan, a Jewish American and plumbing merchant in Fort Worth, bought Blackwell's magazines and Good Publishing Company (aka Sepia Publishing) in 1950. He changed the magazine's name gradually; in 1954 he named it Sepia, and published it until his death in 1976. He changed the name of Messenger to Bronze Thrills and had success with that for some time as well, also publishing black-audience magazines Hep and Jive. After Levitan's death, Sepia was bought by Beatrice Pringle, who had been part of Blackwell's founding editorial team. She continued it until 1983, closing it despite respectable circulation. It was always overshadowed by Ebony, founded and published in Chicago. History In the postwar environment, when the South was still legally segregated, the publishing history of Sepia, based in Fort Worth, Texas reflects other changes. It was founded as Negro Achievements by Horace J. Blackwell, an African-American clothing merchant. His editorial team relied on director Adelle Martin Jackson, who had advanced from starting as a stenographer, and Beatrice Pringle. This was the beginning of the magazine's tradition of having women in "important editorial positions." Blackwell had already started the romance-True Confessions-type magazine, The World's Messenger, in 1942. His innovation was to feature stories written in the dialect of Southern working-class African Americans, providing them with a familiar style. After Blackwell's death, his magazines and Good Publishing Company were bought by George Levitan, a Jewish-American plumbing merchant born in Michigan. He also published other titles for the black market. After his death in 1976, Sepia was bought by Beatrice Pringle, returning it to black ownership but under a woman publisher. All three publishers were outside the majority white Anglo-Saxon males who occupied positions comparable positions with mainstream magazines. But they developed a magazine to appeal to the African-American market, which was receiving new attention in the postwar period, and had considerable success for decades, building distribution to a national audience. While Sepia did not equal the newsstand sales of Levitan's true confessions-type magazine The World's Messenger (renamed as Bronze Thrills), it was the most successful magazine to compete with Ebony for nearly four decades, building a base of national advertisers. Levitan made changes gradually to Negro Achievements, keeping its name until 1953, when he changed it to Sepia Record. In 1954 he changed it again to simply Sepia. Major Elvis Presley controversy According to African-American author Joyce Rochelle Vaughn, in the preface of her book "Thirty Pieces of Silver: The Betrayal of Elvis Presley", an aunt who raised her had told her to never listen to Elvis Presley’s music because "Sepia" magazine had run an article in early 1957 in which he was quoted saying that the “only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and