Chicago ? Publisher John H. Johnson, whose Ebony and Jet magazines countered stereotypical coverage of blacks after World War II and turned him into one of the most influential black leaders in America, died Monday, his company said. He was 87.

LaTrina Blair, promotions manager with Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Co., confirmed Johnson’s death. Further details were not immediately available.

Johnson broke new ground by bringing positive portrayals of blacks into a mass-market publication and encouraging corporations to use black models in advertising aimed at black consumers.

Born into an impoverished family in Arkansas, Johnson went into business with a $500 loan secured by his mother’s furniture and built a publishing and cosmetics empire.

Johnson built Ebony from a circulation of 25,000 on its first press run in November 1945 to a monthly circulation of 1.9 million in 1997. Jet magazine, a weekly, was founded in 1951 and a third magazine, Ebony Man, a monthly men’s magazine, was started in 1985.

Johnson launched Ebony just after World War II, as black soldiers were returning home.

Ebony was created to counter stereotypical portrayals of blacks in white-owned newspapers, magazines and broadcast media.

“We try to seek out good things, even when everything seems bad,” Johnson once said in explaining the magazine’s purpose. “We look for breakthroughs, we look for people who have made it, who have succeeded against the odds, who have proven somehow that long shots do come in.”

According to the company’s Web site, Johnson Publishing Co. Inc. is the world’s largest black-owned and-operated publishing company. It also includes Fashion Fair Cosmetics and a book division.

Born Jan. 19, 1918, in Arkansas City, Ark., Johnson moved to Chicago with his family at age 15.

While working at the black-owned Supreme Life Insurance Co., where he started as a clerk, Johnson founded Johnson Publishing Co. in 1942. Its first magazine was Negro Digest. The magazine is no longer published.

Besides his wife, Johnson is survived by a daughter, Linda Johnson Rice, president of Johnson Publishing.