WERD (Atlanta)

Last updated

WERD was the first radio station owned and programmed by African Americans. The station was established in Atlanta, Georgia on October 3, 1949, broadcasting on 860 AM (now used by WAEC). The National Black Radio Hall of Fame Atlanta Chapter is reopening WERD which still exists at its birth location and will also include a historical museum with it after renovations of the facility are completed. [1]

Contents

WERD in Atlanta was the first radio station owned and operated by African-Americans. (WDIA in Memphis was on the air in 1948 doing black—or Negro as it was then called—programming, but the owners were not African American). Jesse B. Blayton Sr., an accountant, bank president, and Atlanta University professor, purchased WERD in 1949 for $50,000. He changed the station format to "black appeal" and hired his son Jesse Jr. as station manager. [2] "Jockey" Jack Gibson was hired and by 1951 he was the most popular DJ in Atlanta. Ken Knight from Daytona Beach, Florida was also hired to come in as the station's first Program Director.

The station is still housed in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple building on Auburn Avenue, [3] then one of the wealthiest black neighborhoods in the United States. Located in that same building was the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, formed in 1957, led by Martin Luther King Jr., and staffed by Ella Baker. [4] [5] According to Gibson, King would tap the ceiling of SCLC office (just below WERD) with a broomstick to signal he had an announcement to make. Gibson would then lower a microphone from the studio window to King at the window below. [6]

WDIA, in Memphis, Tennessee, though white owned, had Nat D. Williams as part of the first radio station programmed entirely for African Americans, WERD had "Jockey Jack" Gibson, a friend of Blayton from Chicago. [7] Blayton sold the station in 1968. [8] Ken Knight purchased the callsign and took WERD to Jacksonville, Florida. He changed WRHC to WERD; until his death in 1973. For many years it was a gospel station there and the station decided to name the street WERD Radio Drive; as it is still named today.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufus Thomas</span> American singer (1917–2001)

Rufus C. Thomas, Jr. was an American rhythm-and-blues, funk, soul and blues singer, songwriter, dancer, DJ and comic entertainer from Memphis, Tennessee. He recorded for several labels, including Chess Records and Sun Records in the 1950s, before becoming established in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records. His dance records, including "Walking the Dog" (1963), "Do the Funky Chicken" (1969), and "(Do the) Push and Pull" (1970), were some of his most successful songs. According to the Mississippi Blues Commission, "Rufus Thomas embodied the spirit of Memphis music perhaps more than any other artist, and from the early 1940s until his death . . . occupied many important roles in the local scene."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beale Street</span> Street in Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately 1.8 miles (2.9 km). It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of blues music. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are major tourist attractions in Memphis. Festivals and outdoor concerts frequently bring large crowds to the street and its surrounding areas.

WAEC is an AM radio station in Atlanta, Georgia, The station is owned by Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., through licensee Beasley Media Group, LLC,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park</span> National Historical Park of the United States

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood home, and Ebenezer Baptist Church — the church where King was baptized and both he and his father, Martin Luther King Sr., were pastors — as well as, the grave site of King, Jr., and his wife, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King.

WHRK is a commercial radio station licensed to Memphis, Tennessee. The station is owned by iHeartMedia and it airs an urban contemporary radio format. The station carries the nationally syndicated weekday morning show, The Breakfast Club, from co-owned Premiere Networks and based at WWPR-FM in New York City. The rest of the schedule is hosted by local DJs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hal Jackson</span> Disc jockey and radio personality (1915–2012)

Harold Baron Jackson was an American disc jockey and radio personality who broke a number of color barriers in American radio broadcasting.

WDIA is a radio station based in Memphis, Tennessee. Active since 1947, it soon became the first radio station in the United States that was programmed entirely for African Americans. It featured black radio personalities; its success in building an audience attracted radio advertisers suddenly aware of a "new" market among black listeners. The station had a strong influence on music, hiring musicians early in their careers, and playing their music to an audience that reached through the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coast.

Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg was an influential African-American radio broadcaster and later was also the pastor of her own church.

Before the development of the radio format called "Top 40" was born, "Black Appeal Stations" reinvigorated radio. By playing a specific group of songs aimed specifically at the young African American demographic, "Black Appeal Stations" helped keep radio alive. Many other radio stations soon began to employ the "Top 40" radio format, in which the vast majority found their stations to rise from the bottom to top of ratings in their markets.

WRAP was an historic radio call sign, that was transferred, along with a black-oriented format, between three Hampton Roads stations from 1952 until 1989. WRAP began as one of only a handful of American radio stations broadcasting full-time to the African American community, featuring R&B, soul music and black gospel, along with news and talk programs. Communities that were served included Portsmouth, Newport News, Hampton and Virginia Beach.

Arthur Bernard Leaner, who was known professionally as Al Benson, was an American radio DJ, music promoter and record label owner in Chicago between the 1940s and 1960s. He was particularly significant for his promotion of rhythm and blues music and black involvement in the recording industry in Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of radio disc jockeys</span> History of radio employees

The history of radio disc jockeys covers the time when gramophone records were first transmitted by experimental radio broadcasters to present day radio personalities who host shows featuring a variety of recorded music.

Jesse B. Blayton (1897-1977) was a radio entrepreneur, civil rights activist, professor, accountant, and businessman. Blayton founded WERD (AM) in Atlanta, Georgia, which was the first radio station owned and programmed by African Americans. In 1995, he posthumously entered the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr. was an American radio disc jockey and actor. He attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, from 1940 to 1942, earning a bachelor's degree in science. He is regarded as the father of the Black appeal radio format.

Nathaniel Dowd Williams, known as Nat D. Williams or simply Nat D., was an American high school teacher, disc jockey on Black Appeal radio, journalist and editor. He was born on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Known for his jive patter on the air, Williams had 10% of African-Americans in the U.S. listening to his program and heralded the changing radio style which helped to create "Black appeal radio", which it turn led to the urban contemporary listening format of Black radio in the 1960s and '70s.

Holmes Daylie was a radio jock on radio stations in the 1940s and 1950s that rhymed and rapped playing bebop and was one of the early pioneers of black-appeal radio. His upbeat patter and rhyming delivery from the 1940s to 1970s on stations WAAF, WMAQ, WAIT, WGN and other broadcast outlets and television stations brought Daddy-O-Daylie, as he was known, fame and following amongst both black and white audiences. He was inducted into the Black Radio Hall of Fame in Atlanta in 1990.

Ed ‘Eddie’ Castleberry (1928–2009) was a pioneering newscaster, columnist and air personality at the Mutual Black Network, which produced 5-minute news spots that were broadcast on affiliated radio stations, MBN was later taken over by rival Sheridan Broadcasting Company in 1978 and by 1990 SBN had over 150 affiliates and grossed $15 million annually.

South-View Cemetery is a historic African-American-founded cemetery located approximately 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta, Georgia. An active operational cemetery on over 100 acres of land, it is the oldest African-American cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia and the oldest African-American “non eleemosynary” corporation in the country. Founded in 1886, it has since served as the burial place for many leaders in the civil rights movement including Julian Bond and John Lewis. Martin Luther King Jr. was originally buried here but was later moved to the King National Historic Park in Atlanta.

Onzie O. Horne was an American arranger, businessman, conductor, disc jockey, and musician. He worked with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Sammy Davis Jr, Rufus Thomas and BB King and was the first African American to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The All-Negro Hour was an American broadcast show that was the first radio program to feature an exclusively African American cast of performers. This sixty-minute variety show was created and hosted by Jack L. Cooper who was known as the first African American radio broadcaster. The All-Negro Hour first premiered on November 3, 1929, on World Stage Battery Company (WSBC), a white-owned radio station in Chicago, and ran until 1935. The program aired on WSBC’s “ethnic appeal” station every Sunday night at 5 p.m. The “ethnic appeal” station was owned by Joseph Silverman, a battery manufacturer, who sold time on WSBC to individuals who were looking to appeal to a specific ethnic group. With the success starting from the program, The All-Negro Hour, Cooper is considered to be the creator of "black appeal", otherwise known as black radio.

References

  1. ↑ "National Black Radio Hall of Fame". National Black Radio Hall of Fame. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Blayton, Jesse B., Sr. (1879–1977)". BlackPast.org. 3 February 2009. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
  3. ↑ "Sweet Auburn Avenue: The Buildings Tell Their Story".
  4. ↑ "Jesse B. Blayton, Sr". Radio Hall of Fame . Retrieved 2012-11-02.
  5. ↑ Garrow, David (1986). Bearing the Cross . Morrow. ISBN   9780688047948.
  6. ↑ Barlow, William (1999). Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio . Temple University Press. p.  208–209. ISBN   9781566396677.
  7. ↑ Tom Opdyke, "Retro Scope – Life As It Used to Be – WERD Is a Word in Black History," The Atlanta Constitution, October 31, 1994.
  8. ↑ "Jesse B. Blayton Jr., Headed Radio Station WERD for 20 Years," The Atlanta Constitution, November 8, 1986.


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.