During 1948, two years after Our World's first issue reach­ed the nation’s newsstands, the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported its circulation was approaching fifty thousand copies monthly.  As circulation increased, advertising revenues rose too. Major corpora­tions, the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, the Calvert and Seagram distilleries, ­­­ Quaker Oats and Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery and General Motors were among more than a dozen national corporations placing full-page color advertisements in Our World.

Endorsements by­­­ major league baseball players, like New York Giants, center-fielder Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid touting­ Chesterfield cigarettes or any other brand and heavy weight boxing champion Joe Louis speaking up for Joe Louis Bourbon, seems strange today in health conscious America, smiling face, however, appeared frequently in full-paged, color advertisements for the tobacco company’s products and Joe Louis’s advertisements heartily endorsed the bourbon named after him as the drink of champions.

By June 1950 the Carna­tion and Pet Milk companies, the American Tobacco Company and Schenley Dis­tillers were also Our World advertisers, along with the Philco and Admiral television corpo­ra­tions. Corporate America was  begin­ning to recog­nize African Americans growing annual $15-million-dollar purchas­ing power and their increasing disposable income.­ African American workers were earning four times as much as they earned in 1940, though the median $1,828 annual wage of black men was only 61 percent of the $2,982 annual median income white men earned.              

By 1951 Our World magazine had 38 full-time employees working in three stories of a midtown Manhattan office building and revenues in the millions.

During the McCarthy Era and the Cold War struggle between East and West, the search for Communists in high places led to accusations against many black intellectuals including John Preston Davis, Ralph Bunche, and Paul Robeson. 

Davis’s international renown did not insulate him from becoming ensnared in U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's obsession with communists.  Davis, whose views on race and class and anti-segregation activities in the thirties were considered radical and "Marxist", was accused of associating with known communists and belonging to communist dominated organizations, such as the National Negro Congress. 

Three hundred and ninety-five Americans were interrogated in secret hearings, facing accusations from McCarthy and his staff about their alleged involvement in communist activities

Ralph Bunche was summoned to appear before the International Employees Loyalty Board, He had the full support of Eleanor Roosevelt and Walter White of the NAACP.  However, he still needed the support of John P. Davis to trounce the most damaging charges.

Davis had insisted on taking stand to defend Bunche at the threat of his own livelihood. Bunche was finally cleared of all charges when John P. Davis, testified before the Senate Committee.

Afterwards Davis was faced with a life and death struggle of running Our World Magazine which had been a million dollar business in the 1940's and the 1950’s.  Rapid decrease in advertising caused Our World Magazine to fold after eleven years of serving the African American Community.