Jet magazine, the weekly African American publication famous for chronicling the civil rights movement, is ending its regular print edition after more than six decades.

The magazine will continue as a weekly digital magazine app after its print edition ends in June, owner Johnson Publishing Co. said in a statement Wednesday.

The app will include breaking news, videos, digital maps and 3-D charts, the company said, and Jet will keep publishing an annual special print edition.

Linda Johnson Rice, Johnson Publishing’s chair and the daughter of Jet founder John Johnson, said the company is “embracing the future” and taking the magazine “to the next level.”


Johnson “named the publication Jet because, as he said in the first issue, ‘In the world today, everything is moving faster,’” Rice said in the statement. “He could not have spoken more relevant words today.”

Jet has a circulation of 700,000, third behind Ebony, which is also published by Johnson Publishing, and Essence.

In moving to a digital-only format, Jet is joining a parade of other publications that have gotten rid of or sharply cut down on their print editions.

In April, Ladies’ Home Journal laid off its entire print editorial staff and announced the end of its monthly publication. New York magazine moved from a weekly edition to a biweekly publication this year. The Onion, the satirical newspaper, concluded its print run in December.


Founded in 1951, Jet was originally billed as “The Weekly Negro News magazine.” The magazine rose to prominence with its extensive coverage of the civil rights movement.

Jet published photographs in 1955 of the mutilated corpse of Emmett Till, whose brutal murder galvanized many in the African American community and raised awareness of the civil rights movement.