RETHINK is an occasional series featuring contemporary thought on classic Ebony And Jet photos and articles.

We asked ad agency executive Mat Burnett, of Super Genius LLC in Chicago to give some modern perspective on a series of revolutionary ads done by Johnson Publishing in the late 1960s and how far (or not) ethnic advertising has come since then.

In 2009 when you talk about Blacks in advertising or minorities in advertising, you’re really talking about the gap between consumers and creators.  In the late 50s and early 60s - the so-called golden age of advertising - the hard work was convincing mainstream advertisers that Black folks had real money to spend, never mind who was making the ads.  That was the first battle that the “experimental” ads from Johnson Publishing were fighting, a fight to value the purchasing power and relevance of a Black consumer market.  A consumer market that was perfectly ready, willing and able to purchase basic mass marketed products like detergent and beer.  And, honestly, it’s the fight you had to win first before you could move on to deeper issues, like who exactly is going to create the messages.

The creative strength of these ads, despite how old-fashioned and downright clumsy they seem today, is in the humor and the audacity of the communication.  The message is basically, “you’re not going to believe this, but Black people actually have money to spend!”  Radical in its honesty, if not in its pedigree.  Like everyone else at the time, the creatives behind the Johnson ads were taking a page from Doyle Dane Bernbach’s  “Think Small” campaign for Volkswagen.  Advertising that was astoundingly simple and relied on strong visuals and challenging headlines – a breakthrough notion in the 60s. 

Launch Gallery 

What gets lost in the vintage art direction is the fearlessness of these ads.  They look right into the face of racial stereotypes and just blast away. The "cotton-pickin' negro" is a step too far, of course. But what’s amazing is that we would never even think to show that now. It's politically impossible in 2009. And by not being able to talk about it, we've lost the power of that conversation. It's just waiting in the closet alongside the internment of Japanese Americans and the delivery of smallpox blankets to Native Americans.
 
What makes the ads even more remarkable is that they're laughing at the concept of racism, which is a radical idea, and it has been lost in the struggle since: only Chris Rock and Carlos Mencia can broach the topic now. Racism has become deadly serious business, which is why we have such trouble with it, Barack Obama notwithstanding. The jokes fall flat now, because "THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT PICKING COTTON! THOSE ARE MY GODDAMN GRANDPARENTS!"  Many of these headlines are like that, begging for attention, and then backpedaling in the copy. I’m in your face! But I'm really not that threatening!

On the other hand, a few of the images are shocking in how unshocking they are. Looking into a Black man's eyes, or seeing two Black people sitting at (gasp) a Japanese table, are images we've been conditioned to accept as normal. Or, we've been conditioned to tell other people we accept these as normal; even the modern eye can understand the awkward point they are trying to make. But their tone is defiantly insecure: especially the "Black is In" and the "Copy Cats" executions. At this point, the appropriation of Black culture in America is taken as a given. Twentieth century popular culture was Black culture.  Even back then, we'd already lost rock and roll. But I guess it was worth a friendly reminder.