Radio in the South during the civil rights era

[ChrisInMI]

I just finished watching the PBS "American Experience" documentary about the role of music in the African-American civil rights movement,

It is interesting for me to note that although segregation between white Americans and African-Americans existed in the South during the '50s and much of the '60s, Top 40 radio playlists didn't seem to be segregated during this time. I'm looking at a survey from WSGN in Birmingham, AL, from February of 1961, on the Airheads website that has a black artist (Charles Brown) at #1 and a number of other African-American artists listed. And yet I remember reading a story about how a station in the South that dared to play Janis Ian's 1966 hit "Society's Child" (about a white girl dating a black boy) was burned down, and Janis herself talks in her autobiography about being harassed by hostile white crowds in the South when she performed there who called her an N-Word Lover.

What I'm wondering is whether there was any kind of backlash from the conservative white community toward such stations for playing and supporting black artists? Was it that pop stations played such songs as a carrot to their black listeners or as a business decision and would have preferred not to play them at all? Or was it just that segregation didn't extend to musical tastes and that even conservative whites were willing to listen to or at least tolerate the music of African-American artists on their radio stations? Were MOR stations as accepting of black talent (obviously not rock and roll, but maybe the jazz/standards acts like Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong)? I specifically wonder how the conservative white community in the South reacted to the Motown sound and to, later on, the emergence of other black superstars like Michael Jackson, Prince and Whitney Houston.

I was born in 1980 so I obviously didn't live through this time. I'd appreciate any anecdotes or stories anyone might want to share.

 

[TheBigA]

What I'm wondering is whether there was any kind of backlash from the conservative white community toward such stations for playing and supporting black artists?

That is the subject of other PBS documentaries. I recently saw the American Masters on Sam Cooke. Look that one up on PBS.org. Sam was one of those artists in that era you're talking about, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The answer is it depends. They showed how concert halls were segregated, with blacks in the balcony. In the 50s, you had R&B radio, and you had pop radio. Sam was one of the first to cross from R&B to pop. You might have white stations playing black music, but quite often it was late at night. That's how the legends of Alan Freed and Wolfman Jack got built. But they were white DJs playing black music. Many listeners thought they were black. The way in which Sam Cooke died should also tell you a lot about backlash. But certainly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you had the birth of Motown, and then the Janis Ian song you mentioned was 1966. Things were starting to change slowly then. But then the narrow formating in radio that happened after FM and Docket 80-90 made it possible to re-segregate white and black formats so an artist like Lenny Kravitz didn't enjoy the popularity on white rock radio that Jimi Hendrix enjoyed. It's an interesting subject, and I personally don't think we've come far from those days.

 

[rwells2265]

While I didn't live the era firsthand (I was born in 1965), I do have a sizable collection of vintage Deep South radio airchecks from the '60s, so the tape tells the tale ... in a manner of speaking.

Radio stations in this region were most peculiar about the issue of race.  It boiled down to management mentality in many cases, and especially lyrical content.  Yes, most of the so-called "middle-of-the-road" stations appeared to be more skittish about adding an artist of race. 

Top-40 stations in the South were another matter altogether.  Motown - do be aware - predated the Civil Rights Act by a few years.  Add to that a multitude of indie R&B labels.  Bottom line is, in the '50s and '60s most of the contemporary music stations "down here" were a model of racial kumbaya.  To the extent that a subgenre of top-40 station was labeled "salt and pepper" - often every other record being by a black artist.  One such station debuted in 1965, right in the heart of Southern apartheid's worst pocket: Jackson, Miss.  (WWUN 1590 - "W-One")

Then we had the R&B stations - and in the South there were MANY.  WDIA/Memphis, WOKJ/Jackson, WENN/Birmingham, WEUP/Huntsville ... and we cannot forget the nighttime blowtorch out of Nashville, WLAC.  John R., anyone?

In my collecting and listening, the audio tells me the REAL "white bread" stations were mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. 

There were protests in the '50s, the usual "jungle music", "Devil's music" garbage ... happened everywhere, from what I gather.  It didn't work; young audiences in the South LOVED top-40, rock and roll and rhythm & blues.  The "black" stations had a lot of white listeners, too!

NOW: By the 1970s, things changed to some degree.  When The Temptations were all about choreography, and "My Girl", it was all and good.  Then came the 'activist' tracks by the Temps and Marvin Gaye ... a lot of stations snubbed "Ball of Confusion", yes, along with the more intense soul product.  And a lot of stations played it. 

I'm serious: if you go by classic airchecks, you'd think all the civil rights abuses occurred "up north."  ;D 

Check out this website: http://las-solanas.com/arsa/ ... you can look up station surveys, and see for yourself the record sales and airplay data.

This is a fascinating topic, though.  I love reading all that I can about it. 

--Russell

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I can't quarrel with any of the previous posts in this thread. I was doing radio in the South in the late 50s. I remember driving to Memphis one day to do some "slumming". Got in to see the original SUN RECORDS studio. The receptionist said they were building a new facility down the street. I walked down and wandered through the construction just like I belonged there. I stopped in to see WDIA and was treated graciously.

I remember some chit-chat among staff members about where the "edge" was for our community but we were discussing how harsh, how loud it was (for that era). I never worked for a management that gave us specific music instructions that addressed race.

I did get instructed by management in one other area. The president of the NAACP for Arkansas in that era was (and this is the way the name would appear in the teletype copy):

IN A SPEECH TODAY, LUCY (MRS. L. C. ) BATES ANNOUNCED THAT........ .... ...

... so I read: "In a speech today, Mrs. L. C. Bates announced that....

In a few minutes I found myself the recipient of a firm but cordial set of instructions from a member of the ownership family: "Around here we say LUCY BATES. The dignity of using a husband's name is reserved for white women only."

That is the ONLY management instructions I ever received during my broadcasting years on that topic. Later I did sell for a station that was programming (part of the day) to the Black audience. There we had frank discussions on how to sell, how to market the station to agencies and retailers. I'm sure I called on some people who probably bit their tongues, but I never had a client or potential client give me any racist push-back.

Looking back on it, it was an amazing era. Many people who didn't want to see change (in music or in social policy) were careful how they expressed their resistance. Many people who were open to change were careful how they expressed their support for change.

All was not peaches and cream. I was never part of a community where the friction was overly heated.

And I distinctly remember discussion with fellow staffers where we simply shared our research and opinions on which records we could play for maximum audience, and what we should shy away from.

I also remember how many new release records arrived in the mail daily. It was the era when new producers and new publishers were crowding into the market. Stations had to set aside a storage area to pile up the incoming records. A few were recognized as "keepers" the day the came in. Others laid around in the "compost heap of plastic" for a few weeks and when we learned from Billboard that it was becoming a hot item, we would go to the storage area and rake through the compost for the newest hot thing that totally unimpressed us the day we opened it.

There was some GoshAwful sound in the compost pile.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

At a station in south-central Kentucky in the Spring of 1964, requests for songs were taken by telephone and those requests were read when the song was played. One of the phone requests was "White on White" for all of the kids who rode bus number four. The DJ played the song, but did not give the dedication, telling me that the bus mentioned may be segregated.

"White on White" was by an artist named Danny Williams and about a former girl friend getting married to someone else. The reference was to her wedding gown as was the second line - lace on satin. It was certainly not a racial song, but the DJ remained cautious.

 

[WEFWradio]

In my collecting and listening, the audio tells me the REAL "white bread" stations were mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

I'm serious: if you go by classic airchecks, you'd think all the civil rights abuses occurred "up north." ;D

As one who grew up and has lived most of his life in the northeast I have a little different perspective. Yeah radio was pretty "white" here back in the 60s, but then again so was the population. Still is for the most part. The first time I ever saw a black person was in my senior year of high school--and she was an exchange student from some country in Africa!
Yeah, most of the Motown hits got played, along with Aretha and some Wilson Pickett but that was about it. Nothing even remotely edgy.

 

[w9wi]

The Wikipedia page on WLBT-TV (channel 3 Jackson, Mississippi) may be interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLBT*

Fundamentally, the station was ignoring the civil rights movement locally and editing coverage of the movement out of NBC network programming, and lost its license for it. The article suggests that another station, in North Carolina, preempted the last ten minutes of the network newscast to ensure pro-civil-rights editorials didn't get on the air, and another, in Alabama, swapped networks from CBS to ABC as they felt ABC devoted less time to the movement.

Of course this is television, but one wonders to what degree radio was involved in similar practices.

(and while these specific practices obviously weren't happening in the North, one wonders what other skullduggery -- possibly involving the anti-war movement -- might have been going on north of the Ohio River?)


* Yes, there are inaccurate pages on Wikipedia. Judging from what I've read elsewhere (Google the subject) this isn't one of them.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

It might be pointed out that not all that might now be questioned was just on radio stations in the South during this period. There was an announcer on a small FM station in Cincinnati who refused to read wire copy on newscasts that had stories about speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and marches he was involved in. When I noticed this practice and questioned him about it, he replied that such wire stories were just "publicity" for King and the causes he represented.

 

[trusty]

Back in the late 50’s/early 60’s, the top businessmen in Atlanta, both black and white, saw that the coming civil rights movement had its unique challenges, so they met together to preserve peace for their customers and a delicate balance for the community. They realized it would be bad for business if Atlanta had massive demonstrations like what was brewing in the rest of the country. (Also, a lot of the civil rights organizations were headquartered in Atlanta, and you just don’t fight the battles at your headquarters.)

As a result, Atlanta had a saying that reflected its philosophy: “The city too busy to hate.”

I could say that the “philosophy” was reflected in the Top-40 music in the South, but that would sound kinda fake. The fact is, the music mix preceded the movement, with the South having more black R&B records played on mainline Top-40 stations than in the rest of the country (except for maybe New Orleans).

I grew up in Atlanta and wondered why American Bandstand sounded so “white”. Why didn’t other parts of the country accept the records and groups that broke new ground in the South? Why was Billboard and Cash Box so late in their surveys? Why did Chubby Checker get all the credit for “The Twist” when the REAL version belonged to Hank Ballard and the Midnighters?

Oldies stations don’t reflect the Top-40 of the South. It was heavy with a mixture of country music and R&B - the breeding ground for Elvis. There was no color line in the music because it was all about the music itself. Being black or white didn’t matter; being cool did. If the music was good, it got played; if it was cool, it got played more.

Then came the Beatles, and everything changed.

Anyway, I’m through preachin’. You wanted my perspective; I’ve given it…and I could go on .. and on .. and on.

 

[ChrisInMI]

Thank you to all who responded. All of these comments make for a very interesting read. Will definitely have to check out that Sam Cooke documentary.

 

[rwells2265]

The Wikipedia page on WLBT-TV (channel 3 Jackson, Mississippi) may be interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLBT*

Fundamentally, the station was ignoring the civil rights movement locally and editing coverage of the movement out of NBC network programming, and lost its license for it. The article suggests that another station, in North Carolina, preempted the last ten minutes of the network newscast to ensure pro-civil-rights editorials didn't get on the air, and another, in Alabama, swapped networks from CBS to ABC as they felt ABC devoted less time to the movement.

Of course this is television, but one wonders to what degree radio was involved in similar practices.

First, I do have some radio clips from Jackson, Mississippi in that time frame ... trust me, the hit music stations in Jackson (or in much of Mississippi) had little to no issue of color. As someone posted above, it was all about the music. Or, as Berry Gordy nicely put it: "It's whats in the grooves that counts."

What is posted on Wikipedia on WLBT is, by all accounts, spot-on ... right down to the white supremacist/Klan literature in the station's lobby: their "Freedom Bookstore", as it was called.

As an O/T aside, the station in Birmingham (WBRC-TV) flipped to ABC mostly due to parent company Taft Broadcasting's alignment of most of its stations to that network. CBS' practices didn't steer the action, but indeed it led WBRC management to, shall we say, not contest the edict to flip from eye to alphabet.

Background on Birmingham TV: http://www.birminghamrewound.com/radio-tv.htm

As for North Carolina: WRAL/Raleigh was an ABC affil at the time ... ABC's newscast was 15 minutes until 1967, so there was nothing to preempt.

Anyway, back to WLBT -- a curious result of its license being vacated is a substantial transformation of the top-40 radio wars in Jackson, Mississippi. Background: Lamar Life operated both WLBT-TV and WJDX-AM and FM. 'LBT was yanked, but Lamar kept the licenses for its radio properties. In the '60s, WJDX-AM was all but a big waste. The biggest signal in Mississippi (5 kW at 620 kHz), with a very sleepy MOR format and a lot of religious (and, yes, political) features. Aside from NBC Monitor on the weekend, there was very little of worth with that station. Across the street, WSLI-AM 930 was the top middle-of-the-road station, with an upbeat image and personality (coincidentally, the radio sister to WLBT's rival, WJTV channel 12).

Lamar Life operated its broadcast side as one line item on the corporate budget, so WLBT's immense profits covered up the red ink at WJDX-AM and FM. OH - did I mention that beginning in 1968, WJDX-FM - 100,000 watts atop the 2,000-foot 'LBT stick - was ... wait for it ... underground/progressive?? Yup. Stodgy reactionary programming ruled the day on TV and AM, while a bunch of 'hippies' marched past the Ku Klux Klan literature in the lobby to take the mic, programming what amounted to the first "album rock" station in the South!! I told you things were highly peculiar in this neck of the woods.

Anyhoo, WLBT was notified of the forfeiture in 1969. Appeals were made, and it was clear that by 1970, they were toast. Lamar Life was now faced with a radio property that suddenly had to start generating black ink. They called in Bill Tanner - by then a brilliant programmer - who grew up in Vicksburg, and at the time was programming a station in Monroe, La. Yes, the same Bill Tanner who really made his name in the Fort Lauderdale-Miami market (Y-100). Tanner took stodgy ol' WJDX and flipped it to a fast-paced Drake-style top-40 format. It was like Andy Travis and WKRP, I kid you not.

WJDX-AM went on to clean up, and blow its existing top-40 competition (WRBC and WWUN) off the dial within five years.

Pardon my tangent. Just thought some of you might be interested.

--Russell

 

[cyberdad]

Russell....

Thanks for the interesting story on WLBT/WJDX. When I first heard 'JDX in 1971,I thought it was as good as it gets. I couldn't believe pop/top-40 was being that well-executed in a market that size. And a great signal to go with it with 5kw on 620. Even the directional 1kw nighttime signal wasn't bad (as long as you were south of the stick. I visited the station once in about 1974 and was equally impressed. First-rate facility/nice people.

My main exposure to "mainstream" top 40 in the Civil Rights era was listening to KAAY (Little Rock). Any racial tensions that might have been simmering in this hotbed of activity certainly wasn't evident in KAAY's playlist or programming. High-energy straight-ahead top 40 slickly presented.

 

[FRR]

When I was a teenager living in SW Ohio near Cincinnati I used to love to sit in my room as night and listen to my little clock radio. I especially enjoyed listening to the "far off " stations like WBZ in Boston, WLS Chicago, and every once in a while I would be able to tune in a station from Nashville. It was interesting listening to the news broadcasts. When ever they mentioned a crime, they would always give the race of the victim or perp. It would always be worded a "negro male" and sometimes a "nigra " or a "white man " but always given. As a kid from Ohio in 1961 and 62 I always wondered why they did that. A couple of years later when I started college I began to understand why. Nashville was "deep south" in the early 1960's and their radio reflected that from my experiences.