Media and the Movement Project Collection of Black-Owned Radio Station Broadcasts
Media and the Movement Project Collection of Black-Owned Radio Station Broadcasts
1969-1978
Collection Excerpt
"The Media and the Movement Collection contains audio recordings, 1969-1978, and supporting documentation related to Black-owned community radio stations across the American South. Materials correspond to "Media and the Movement: Journalism, Civil Rights, and Black Power in the American South," an oral history project from 2011-2015 based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program and funded by the North Carolina Humanities Council and National Endowment for the Humanities. Seth Kotch, a white Associate Professor and historian in UNC's Department of American Studies, and Joshua Clark Davis (position: Assistant Professor of History, University of Baltimore; race: white) directed the project, which aims to understand the media and activism ecosystem of the American South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s through oral history work and by digitizing rare and endangered sound recordings from Black-owned radio stations across the southern and eastern United States. The collection contains the radio broadcasts compiled by the Media and the Movement Project's team of researchers, which consist mostly of analog open reel and digitized radio broadcasts from WAFR (Durham, N.C.), in addition to digitized radio broadcasts from WVSP (Warrenton, N.C.), WRFG (Atlanta, Ga.), and WBAI (New York, N.Y.). Material was donated by Obataiye Akinwole, a Black radio host and staff member at WAFR, Jereann King Johnson of WVSP, and Valeria Lee, also of WVSP. With the exception of the analog open reel radio broadcasts from WAFR compiled and donated by Obataiye Akinwole, the Media and the Movement Project's team of researchers borrowed, digitized, and then returned original recordings to their owners. Analog and digitized radio broadcasts found in the collection contain interviews, recorded speeches and lectures, educational programs, local news, music, and other segments with a focus on African American music and programming. Of particular note are interviews and appearances by Bobby Seale, Floyd McKissick, Yusuf Salim, Joan Little, Dr. Benjamin Mays, Ben Ruffin, Maynard Jackson, Anne Braden, Alice Balance, Algia Mae Hinton, and Guitar Slim, among others. Other programs discuss the role of African Americans in the development of the United States, music and poetry, the Vietnam War, health, the history of Kwanzaa, and a variety of social issues, such as incarceration and suicide among Black women. The collection also contains supporting documentation, including digital tape logs of the digitized radio broadcasts prepared by the grant project team, as well as loose papers found with the analog open reel radio broadcasts from WAFR."
Kinds of Material: Audiovisual, Pictures