(Photo By Flickr User Tom Ipri)

African-American history author and former Ebony magazine editor Lerone Bennett Jr. has died in Chicago, IL at age 89.

A.A. Rayner and Sons Funeral Home in Chicago, IL said that Bennett died on last Tuesday.

Ebony magazine tells the Chicago Sun-Times that Bennett had vascular dementia. The newspaper reports Bennett who was born in Clarksdale, MS, grew up in Jackson, MS, and worked on his high school newspaper and the student newspaper at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. He worked at Ebony for about 50 years.

His books included a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King (1964).

Ebony CEO Linda Johnson Rice said that,

Bennett “was the guiding light for the editorial vision of Ebony.”

Bennett is credited with the phrase: “Image Sees, Image Feels, Image Acts,” meaning the images that people see influence how they feel, and ultimately how they act.

He has received honorary degrees from Morehouse College, Wilberforce University, Marquette University, Voorhees College, Morgan State University, University of Illinois, Lincoln College, and Dillard University.

Bennett’s footprints are in pavement at the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame in Atlanta. His wife, Gloria, was a Jet journalist. She died in 2009. He is survived by three children.

(Information From Chicago Sun-Times & WGEM-TV)