Has it really been two years since we last posted an issue of It’s Happening? So it seems, and here we are, bringing back this black-themed 1970s publication today, when the U.S. is in the midst of one of its periodic racial upheavals. The timing is a fluke—this is an August issue always destined to be posted this month—but we’re reminded by the existence of It’s Happening that racial discord has always generated easy profits for a cynical few media moguls. In this case the head cynic is Reuben Sturman, a clever fox who eventually built a pornography empire his future prosecutors would describe as the largest in America. That description is unconfirmable today (and probably then, too), but there’s no doubt his holdings were vast.
It’s Happening of the 1960s was a bold publication, but by the time this issue appeared it was not dissimilar to other cheapie tabloids. It printed stories about the virile black lovers of white housewives and starlets, or the sporting conquests of black athletes, or current news that skirted actual journalism, but it did not—crucially for a black newspaper—spend time on important issues like police misconduct, advocacy for social change, or any other subject that might have branded it a political paper. Published during a time of constant social turbulence, it doubtless attracted the eyeballs of those looking for something radical and bold. Those readers would have been satisfied with the earlier It’s Happening, but not with the later version.
So once we take bold and radical off the table, the main two differences left between 1970s It’s Happening and other tabloids were its placement of African Americans on every cover, and its deliberate marketing to black America. Even this went only so far—by now about a fifth of each issue had nothing specific to do with the black community at all. These would be stories about white celebs, or maybe weird crimes in some European enclave. So, it was a black paper, yes, but one that had learned not to alienate. A white consumer who liked a typical cheapie tab like, say, Midnight, would have found 1970s It’s Happening comfortingly familiar. We have some scans below, and you can see more of the same in our previous posts here, here, and here.
