The first issue was assembled on the Burns’ kitchen table in their apartment on Jackson Boulevard in Chicago. While Johnson raised money to fund the magazine, Burns worked on assembling the fledgling publication. Johnson was a young political assistant who wanted to create a black equivalent of Life magazine. It was at this time that Burns met John H. From that first assignment, Burns studied the black community “almost like a sociologist, filling thousands of file folders with tidbits of information about who-was-who in Chicago’s Bronzeville and what organizations made the South Side neighborhood tick.” These files comprise the majority of this collection.īefore Burns got the job working at the Defender, he worked in public relations for Earl Dickerson, a local black politician who was running for Congress against William Dawson in 1942. Burns was hired at the Chicago Defender as a temporary editor when the newspaper needed extra writers to publish the legendary “Victory Through Unity” edition in September 1942. With credentials like that, I knew it wouldn’t do much good to apply to The Wall Street Journal.” When the Burns were expecting their first child and the left-wing publication that Burns was working for in San Francisco folded, the couple returned to Chicago and Burns accepted a job painting houses with his father. As Burns explained, “I think I must be the only journalist who ever worked not just on the Daily Worker, but all three of the country’s communist newspapers. He returned to journalism as the editor of the Chicago Daily Defender from 1966 - 1967 and the editor of Sepia from 1968 - 1977.īurns’ membership in the Young Communist League after his college years limited his employment opportunities in the world of journalism. He was later the vice president of a public relations firm, Cooper, Burns and Golin, from 1958 – 1966. He married Esther Stern on Novemand they had three children, Barbara, Richard and Stephen.īurns was the national editor of the Chicago Defender from 1941 - 1945, the editor of Negro Digest from 1942 - 1954, and the executive editor of Ebony from 1945 - 1954, Jet from 1950 – 1954, Sepia from 1955 - 1958and Guns magazine from 1956 - 1958. Burns attended New York University and received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1934. After working for black publications for thirty-five years, Burns referred to himself as “a black newspaperman, black in my orientation and thinking, in my concerns and outlook, in my friends and associations, black in everything but my skin color.” Burns summarized the influence that his experiences at black publications had on him: “I am a white man who has been passing for Negro for thirty-five years.”īorn Benjamin Bernstein on Augto Alexander, a housepainter, and Frieda Burns, Burns grew up on New York’s West Side. The materials in Part II of the collection date from 1939 to 1999.īen Burns had a long and distinguished career as “a white editor in black journalism.” He helped found Ebony and a number of other black publications and he trained many black writers in all aspects of print journalism. Burns donated these materials throughout the 1990s most of the materials were donated in April and May of 1995. This finding aid captures the materials in Part II of the collection. Approximately 135 linear feet, Part I includes materials dating from 1950 to 1979. Part I was processed by Deborah Holton in 1988. Part I was donated in 1981 and includes reference files and the personal library of Ben Burns. The Ben Burns Papers consist of two parts.
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