Eunice Johnson, widow of publisher John Johnson, top center, watches as pallbearers carry the casket of her husband from the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel after his funeral service Monday in Chicago

Chicago ? Pioneering black publisher John H. Johnson, who founded Ebony and Jet magazines, was hailed Monday as a man who left “an imprint on the conscience of a nation” during a packed funeral that drew Sen. Barack Obama and former President Clinton.

Mourners filled the 1,500-seat Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago for the 2 1/2-hour service. Johnson died Aug. 8 of heart failure at 87.

In addition to Obama and Clinton, Johnson was eulogized by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Mayor Richard M. Daley, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Johnson launched Ebony in 1945, at a time when blacks had little political representation and enjoyed relatively scant positive media coverage. The magazine’s circulation of 25,000 a year grew to a monthly circulation of more than 1.6 million last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Jet magazine, a newsweekly founded in 1951, has a circulation of more than 954,000.

Almost all the speakers at Johnson’s funeral spoke about how his publications changed the way black Americans thought of themselves at a time when the advertising’s representation of blacks consisted of caricatures like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.