WBOX (AM)

Last updated

WBOX
WBOX radio station.jpg
Frequency 920 kHz
Programming
Format Country
Ownership
OwnerBest Country Broadcasting, LLC
WBOX-FM
History
First air date
March 1, 1954
Former call signs
WHXY (1954–1959)
Technical information
Facility ID 6317
Class D
Power 1,000 watts (daytime only)
Transmitter coordinates
 30°50′27.6″N89°50′6″W / 30.841000°N 89.83500°W / 30.841000; -89.83500

WBOX is a radio station broadcasting on 920 AM in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The station is owned by Best Country Broadcasting, LLC, and carries a country format.

Contents

In 1965, the station was boycotted by the Ku Klux Klan during a turbulent civil rights struggle in Bogalusa, earning the station and its manager national attention but driving its ownership out of town.

History

Early years

WHXY signed on the air March 1, 1954. [1] The station was originally owned by the Bogalusa Broadcasting Corporation, controlled by Charles Holt and Dave Matison, and broadcast during the day on 920 kHz. [2] The station was acquired by J. A. Oswald in February 1959 for $35,500; [3] coinciding with the change of ownership, WHXY became WBOX on March 6, 1959. [2]

In 1961, Oswald sold the station to Magic City Broadcasting Corporation, a group of businessmen from St. Louis, for $80,000. [4]

Civil rights strife and KKK boycott

When you become a target of the Ku Klux Klan you soon learn that if there ever was a devil on the face of this earth, it lives, breathes, it functions in the cloaked evil of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan. And you cannot compromise with the devil.

Ralph Blumberg, acceptance speech for the 1965 RTNDA Paul White Award [5]

In October 1964, WBOX owner Ralph Blumberg joined a group of community leaders seeking to maintain racial tranquility. [6] He also sponsored an address that was to be given by Brooks Hays to a racially mixed audience. [7] The Ku Klux Klan, which had a prominent role in town, did not respond kindly, intimidating organizers and forcing the address to be canceled. [7] On March 18, 1965, six bullet holes were found in WBOX's transmitter building, which was located in a vacant field four miles northeast of town. [8] That same day, Blumberg began broadcasting editorials claiming that the KKK was threatening an economic boycott of WBOX's advertisers. [8] Threats were also made against Blumberg and his family, while he received harassing telephone calls "all night long". [6] Two nights later, at a meeting of Klansmen at the Hotel Bentley in Alexandria, one speaker confirmed that the Klan was involved for "putting that station out of business", referring to WBOX. [9] As a result, the ranks of WBOX's advertisers dwindled from 75 to just six. [6]

In order to keep the station on the air despite losing more than 90 percent of its advertisers to the KKK boycott, broadcasters elsewhere in the United States stepped up. New York public relations consultant Mortimer Matz bought 100 commercials, each consisting of a reading of the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, to be aired on WBOX. [7] The Greater New York Broadcasters Committee, with the support of the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, also began raising funds to keep the station afloat. [7]

Blumberg attempted to appease the KKK by canceling his editorials, but the intimidation continued. [10] The boycott had the effect of driving Blumberg out of town. He moved his family to St. Louis twice, with the second time being on the advice of an FBI agent. [11] Late in 1965, he moved to New York City and became a reporter at WCBS-TV. [12] Blumberg testified in January 1966 before the House Un-American Activities Committee; [6] [10] he was awarded the 1965 Paul White Award by the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the Lee De Forest Award by the National Association for Better Radio and Television for his actions. [13]

Post-boycott years

In late 1965—though not approved until March 1966—WBOX was sold to Pearl River Broadcasting Corporation [2] for a financial loss; [13] the $71,500 sale price [14] was less than the $80,000 that Magic City had paid in 1961. [4] The principals of Pearl River were Wayne E. Marcy, owner of an electronics company, and oil company employee William D. Womack. [15] Womack, in a letter to the editor of Broadcasting a year later, declared that many advertising accounts, including virtually all of the local clients, had returned to WBOX. [16] Marcy bought out Womack's interest in 1972, [2] and Moseley-Smith Broadcasting, which owned a station in Boca Raton, Florida, acquired WBOX in 1974 for $130,000. [17]

1978 saw Northlake Audio acquire WBOX for $220,000. Northlake was primarily owned by the Hall family, including Purvis M. Hall III, who was an announcer and program director; station manager Stephen Moses also owned five percent. [18] Northlake received approval to relocate the transmitter to a new site and begin broadcasting at night, which went into effect in 1980. [2] The Halls also made another major improvement: the launch of sister FM station WBOX-FM 92.7 (now 92.9), licensed to Varnado, in November 1985. [1] : B-125  The two stations initially carried different formats, with 920 airing country music and 92.7 adopting an adult contemporary sound. [1]

WBOX-AM-FM was sold to Bogue Chitto Communications for $325,000 in 1988; the sale made the pair sisters to four radio stations in Mississippi. [19] Both stations changed to contemporary country formats. [20] In 1992, WBOX applied to revert to daytime-only operation. [21] Best Country Broadcasting, owned by Ben Strickland, acquired WBOX-AM-FM for $150,000 in 2002. [22]

On October 26, 2023, the Federal Communications Commission issued an Order to Pay or to Show Cause for WBOX-AM-FM to pay delinquent regulatory fees totaling just over $21,000 covering fiscal years 2002, 2012 through 2019, and 2022. Best Country was given sixty days to pay the past due fees or show cause why "these regulatory fees are inapplicable or should otherwise be waived or deferred." The Notice officially constitutes the initiation of a proceeding to revoke the licenses if Best Country fails to respond. [23]


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ku Klux Klan</span> American white supremacist terrorist hate group

The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, the Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets at various times have been African Americans, as well as Jews and Catholics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bogalusa, Louisiana</span> City in Louisiana, United States

Bogalusa is a city in Washington Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,232 at the 2010 census. In the 2020 census the city reported a population of 10,659. It is the principal city of the Bogalusa Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Washington Parish and is also part of the larger New Orleans–Metairie–Hammond combined statistical area.

The Deacons for Defense and Justice was an armed African-American self-defense group founded in November 1964, during the civil rights era in the United States, in the mill town of Jonesboro, Louisiana. On February 21, 1965—the day of Malcolm X's assassination—the first affiliated chapter was founded in Bogalusa, Louisiana, followed by a total of 20 other chapters in this state, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. It was intended to protect civil rights activists and their families, threatened both by white vigilantes and discriminatory treatment by police under Jim Crow laws. The Bogalusa chapter gained national attention during the summer of 1965 in its violent struggles with the Ku Klux Klan.

The grand wizard is the national leader of several different Ku Klux Klan organizations in the United States and abroad.

This is a partial list of notable historical figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership of the Klan is secret. Political opponents sometimes allege that a person was a member of the Klan, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.

Ku Klux Klan auxiliaries are organized groups that supplement, but do not directly integrate with the Ku Klux Klan. These auxiliaries include: Women of the Ku Klux Klan, The Jr. Ku Klux Klan, The Tri-K Girls, the American Crusaders, The Royal Riders of the Red Robe, The Ku Klux balla, and the Klan's Colored Man auxiliary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women of the Ku Klux Klan</span> Branch of the US Ku Klux Klan

Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK), also known as Women's Ku Klux Klan, and Ladies of the Invisible Empire, held to many of the same political and social ideas of the KKK but functioned as a separate branch of the national organization with their own actions and ideas. While most women focused on the moral, civic, and educational agendas of the Klan, they also had considerable involvement in issues of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and religion. The women of the WKKK fought for educational and social reforms like other Progressive reformers but with extreme racism and intolerance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KREH</span> Vietnamese-language radio station in Pecan Grove–Houston, Texas

KREH is a Vietnamese language AM radio station, licensed to Pecan Grove, Texas, United States. KREH's studios are in Little Saigon and in the International District in Houston, Texas. It broadcasts on the frequency of 900 kHz and operates from sunrise to sunset under ownership of Bustos Media. It is one of only two Asian stations serving the Greater Houston area.

KKKK may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan</span> American Ku Klux Klan organization

The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a Ku Klux Klan organization which is active in the United States. It originated in Mississippi and Louisiana in the early 1960s under the leadership of Samuel Bowers, its first Imperial Wizard. The White Knights of Mississippi were formed in December 1963, when they separated from the Original Knights after the resignation of Imperial Wizard Roy Davis. Roughly 200 members of the Original Knights of Louisiana also joined the White Knights. The White Knights were not interested in holding public demonstrations nor were they interested in letting any information about themselves get out to the masses. Similar to the United Klans of America (UKA), the White Knights of Mississippi were very secretive about their group. Within a year, their membership was up to around six thousand, and they had Klaverns in over half of the counties in Mississippi. By 1967, the number of active members had shrunk to around four hundred.

WBOX may refer to:

WMGO is a radio station broadcasting a full service format. Licensed to Canton, Mississippi, United States, the station serves the Jackson, Mississippi area. The station is currently owned by WMGO Broadcasting Corp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey</span>

The Ku Klux Klan has had a history in the U.S. state of New Jersey since the early part of the 1920s. The Klan was active in the areas of Trenton and Camden and it also had a presence in several of the state's northern counties in the 1920s. It had the most members in Monmouth County, and operated a resort in Wall Township.

The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is a Klan faction that has been in existence since November 1963. In the sixties, the National Knights were the main competitors against Robert Shelton's United Klans of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ku Klux Klan in Canada</span> Canadian extension of American white supremacist group

The Ku Klux Klan is an organization that expanded operations into Canada, based on the second Ku Klux Klan established in the United States in 1915. It operated as a fraternity, with chapters established in parts of Canada throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The first registered provincial chapter was registered in Toronto in 1925 by two Americans and a Canadian. The organization was most successful in Saskatchewan, where it briefly influenced political activity and whose membership included a member of Parliament, Walter Davy Cowan.

Robert Hicks was a prominent leader in Bogalusa, Louisiana during the Civil Rights Movement, whose activism helped put an end to segregation and discriminatory practices in education, housing, employment, public accommodations and healthcare. Best known for his leading role in founding the Bogalusa chapter of The Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed African-American self-defense group, Hicks led daily protests on the streets of Jim Crow-era Bogalusa. He served as president and later Vice President of the Bogalusa Civic and Voters League, and the plaintiff in a series of civil rights lawsuits which achieved groundbreaking legal victories nationwide.

WBOX-FM is a radio station broadcasting on 92.9 FM in Varnado, Louisiana. The station is owned by Best Country Broadcasting, LLC, and carries a country format. The station is co-owned with WBOX 920 in Bogalusa.

The New Orleans Saints Radio Network is a radio network which carries games of the New Orleans Saints. The flagship stations of the radio network is 870 WWL-AM and 105.3 WWL-FM in New Orleans. Many of the stations that broadcast these games are almost entirely located around the Gulf Coast region, with stations mostly located in Louisiana and Mississippi with a few exceptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Elonzo Davis</span> American Ku Klux Klan member (1890–1966)

Roy Elonzo Davis was an American preacher, white supremacist, and con artist who co-founded the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. Davis was Second Degree of the KKK under William J. Simmons and later became National Imperial Wizard (leader) of the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He worked closely with Simmons, and was a co-author of the 1921 KKK constitution, bylaws and rituals. Davis spent decades as a KKK recruiter, at one point being named "Royal Ambassador" and an "Official Spokesperson" of the KKK by Simmons. Davis and Simmons were both expelled from the KKK in 1923 by Hiram Wesley Evans, who had ousted Simmons as leader. Simmons started the Knights of the Flaming Sword branch of the KKK and with Davis's help retained the loyalty of many KKK members. Davis was later reappointed second in command of the national KKK organization by Imperial Wizard Eldon Edwards, a position he held until being elected national leader by 1959.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "WBOX(AM)" (PDF). 1986 Broadcasting Yearbook. 1986. p. B-120. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 FCC History Cards for WBOX
  3. ↑ "Application Is Granted WHXY". Monroe News-Star. Associated Press. February 26, 1959. p. 2. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  4. 1 2 "Changing hands" (PDF). Broadcasting. January 30, 1961. p. 66. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  5. ↑ Blumberg, Ralph (Winter 1966). "Comment" (PDF). Television Quarterly. National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. V (1): 80. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Broadcaster Tells Of Klan Threats: Testifies Intimidation Drove Him from Bogalusa". Daily World. UPI. January 5, 1966. p. 1. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "'Boycotted' Station Will Receive Aid". Shreveport Times. Associated Press. April 1, 1965. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  8. 1 2 "Shooting Probed At Radio Station". The Town Talk. Associated Press. March 23, 1965. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  9. ↑ "KKK Conclave Here Draws 87". The Town Talk. March 22, 1965. p. 2. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  10. 1 2 Hanna, Sam A. (January 6, 1966). "Klan Probers Cite Terrorist Tactics In Bogalusa Strife". Shreveport Times. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  11. ↑ "How Blumberg left Bogalusa" (PDF). Broadcasting. January 10, 1966. pp. 60–61. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  12. ↑ "Bogalusan Joins N.Y. TV Station". The Town Talk. Associated Press. December 30, 1965. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  13. 1 2 "Blumberg wins De Forest award" (PDF). Broadcasting. February 21, 1966. p. 101. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  14. ↑ "Bogalusa Radio Station Is Sold". The Town Talk. March 1, 1966. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Ownership changes" (PDF). Broadcasting. March 7, 1966. p. 88. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Doing fine" (PDF). Broadcasting. April 10, 1967. p. 25. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  17. ↑ "Ownership changes" (PDF). Broadcasting. February 11, 1974. p. 66. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  18. ↑ "Changing Hands" (PDF). Broadcasting. August 14, 1978. p. 65. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  19. ↑ "Changing Hands" (PDF). Broadcasting. August 8, 1988. pp. 39–40. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  20. ↑ "WBOX(AM), WBOX-FM" (PDF). 1991 Broadcasting Yearbook. 1991. pp. B-139, B-145. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  21. ↑ "Facilities/Parameters: Applications" (PDF). M Street Journal. May 13, 1992. p. 4 (12). Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  22. ↑ "Changing Hands" (PDF). Broadcasting & Cable. March 25, 2002. p. 22. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  23. ↑ "Order to Pay or Show Cause" (PDF). Retrieved October 26, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.