Founded in 1946 as Negro Achievements by Horace J. Blackwell, an African-American clothing merchant of Fort Worth, Texas, who also had already founded
The World's Messenger in 1942, featuring romance-true confession type stories of working-class blacks,
Sepia is a photojournalistic magazine that featured articles based primarily on achievements of African Americans. It was part of the rise of postwar publications and businesses aimed at black audiences.
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| Sepia magazine covers from the 1970s |
George Levitan, a Jewish-American man born in Michigan, who was a plumbing merchant in Fort Worth, bought the 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.
Here is a photo collection of
Sepia magazine covers in the 1970s.
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| The Jackson, October 1971 |
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| Freda Payne, February 1972 |
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| Muhammad Ali, March 1972 |
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| Gloria Hendry, May 1973 |
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| Last photo of Jackie Robinson together with his family, January 1973 |
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| Stevie Wonder, November 1973 |
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| Bill Withers and Denise Nicholas, January 1974 |
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| Ike and Tina Turner, June 1974 |
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| Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, May 1974 |
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| Brenda Sykes, January 1975 |
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| Diana Ross, December 1975 |
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| Juanita Brown, June 1975 |
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| Original Supreme Mary Wilson and Ex-Supremes Jean Terrell and Lynda Laurence, August 1975 |
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| Pam Grier, February 1976 |
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| Roxie Roker and Franklin, December 1976 |
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| Dionne Warwick, October 1979 |
