How WDIA made Memphis the birthplace of Black radio

WDIA signed on in Memphis on June 7, 1947, as a 250-watt station playing country, light pop and homemaker shows. It was not doing well. On October 25, 1948, its owners gave an hour of airtime to Nat D. Williams, a history teacher at Booker T. Washington High School and a well-known newspaper columnist. His show, Tan Town Jubilee, made him the first Black disc jockey in Memphis and one of the first Black announcers in the segregated South.

Listeners responded at once. Over 1948 and 1949, WDIA moved its whole schedule to programming for Black Memphians. It is widely credited as the first station in the United States programmed entirely for Black listeners, and it climbed to the top of the local ratings.

The voices that followed

The station became a training ground. In early 1949 a young B.B. King started a daily 15-minute spot selling a tonic called Pep-Ti-Kon. A year later he took over an afternoon disc jockey slot before his recording career took off.

Rufus Thomas got his start in radio at WDIA and stayed with the station for decades. Maurice "Hot Rod" Hulbert worked its microphones before King took over his slot. Martha Jean Steinberg, a nurse and mother of three, landed her first radio job there in 1954 and became "the Queen." She later carried that voice to Detroit.

The studio was a stage, too. Bobby "Blue" Bland, Johnny Ace and Rosco Gordon cut some of their first records at WDIA. The station's Teen Town Singers program helped launch Carla Thomas and Isaac Hayes.

In June 1954, WDIA was licensed to jump from 250 watts to 50,000 watts. The bigger signal carried Black Memphis across the Mid-South.

The Goodwill Station

WDIA called itself the Goodwill Station, and it earned the name. It carried community announcements, church programs, Black history segments and an open forum on the problems Black Memphians faced, at a time when other stations ignored them.

Its annual Goodwill and Starlight Revues packed big halls with the stars of the day. The money went to the WDIA Goodwill Fund, started in 1954, which bought buses to take disabled Black children to school and later paid for scholarships, boys' clubs and Little League teams.

Who owned the microphone

For all of that, WDIA was owned by two white businessmen, Bert Ferguson and John R. Pepper. The station has changed hands several times since and today belongs to iHeartMedia, where it plays classic soul.

Black ownership in radio has stayed rare. In the FCC's latest ownership count, Black owners held a majority stake in about 4% of commercial AM stations and fewer than 2% of commercial FM stations.

That gap is why Play Ode exists. Hear us here.