Anne Moody: 'EBONY Magazine Completely Ignored Me'

By Roscoe Barnes III, Ph.D.
Chairman, Anne Moody History Project
Copyright (c) 2019

#AnneMoody

When I learned yesterday (April 10, 2019), that Johnson Publishing Company (JPC), former publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, had filed for bankruptcy, I recalled what Anne Moody said in a 1985 interview with Debra Spencer.

Moody was the famous author of Coming of Age in Mississippi. Despite her literary success, Ebony magazine "completely ignored" her supposedly because of her marriage to Austin Straus, a white man. Many in the black press refused to feature her or write about her in a positive way, she said in her interview with Spencer, who recorded their discussion for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH).

JPC, which sold Ebony and Jet in 2016, has been viewed as an iconic pillar in the world of African American history and publishing. Now it is going out of business. The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Tuesday. The bankruptcy does not affect the magazines.

Moody seemed disappointed in how she was treated by Ebony. Below is an excerpt from Spencer's interview with her.

SPENCER: 
This is rather personal, and you don't have to answer it, but I was wondering what kind of reaction you got from your family and your friends and the movement when you married a white man?

MOODY:
Well, I just put it down here, those were the days of Rapp Brown and Stokely Carmichael and black power, and so a lot of my friends in the movement, they came on with me and not to mention the subtle come-ons from my husband's parents, who were Jewish and his relatives because it was an integrated marriage.

The black press almost completely ignored me. EBONY magazine has never done an article on me, not once. I was in Chicago, and here i was on all these talk shows, interviewed by all these papers, and EBONY magazine completely ignored me. Never have they once done an article on me, and a newspaper in Harlem, they wrote a real put-down. It was based solely upon the fact that I was married to a white man.

Further reading:

Johnson Publishing Co., the ex-publisher of Ebony and Jet, files for bankruptcy. (Chicago Sun-Times). See story here.

Johnson Publishing Company, the ex-publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, files for bankruptcy (The Washington Post). See story here.

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Want to know MORE about Anne Moody? 

Visit here to see the timeline of important 

events in her life history!

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For more information: 
See the Anne Moody page here. Questions about the Anne Moody History Project may be directed to Roscoe Barnes III, Ph.D. via email at doctorbarnes3@gmail.com or roscoebarnes3@yahoo.com. For updates on Anne Moody history and the on-going work of this community service project, simply follow this blog or follow AMHP on Twitter (@AnneMoodyHP). #ComingOfAgeinMississippi