ARKANSAS CITY — Arkansas State Parks hosted a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday in Arkansas City on the future site of John H. Johnson Park.
Held at Delta Heritage Trail State Park, the ceremony took place on John H. Johnson Day.
Johnson, born in Arkansas City in 1918, is known for founding Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago in 1942. PBC published the influential Black magazines Ebony and Jet.
Johnson became the first Black person on the Forbes 400 list in 1982. In 1996, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from fellow Arkansan President Bill Clinton. He died in 2005.
John H. Johnson day was declared by the Arkansas legislature in 2019 after appeals from the John H. Johnson Museum and Educational Center in Arkansas City.
In its Sept. 15, 1955, issue, PBC’s Jet magazine published pictures of the mutilated body of Chicago teenager Emmitt Till after he was kidnapped and murdered. Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on a public, open-casket funeral to shine a light on the racial violence being perpetrated in the South.
Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., a cousin to Till and the last living witness to his abduction, was one of the speakers at Tuesday’s event, which focused in part on Jet’s 70th anniversary.
The park is expected to be completed in summer 2023.
