Radio Industry

By: Donna Tyler Hollie

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Radio Industry

“In this business, you have to think like a man, act like a woman, and work like a dog!” Martha Steinberg uttered those words to describe her life as a disc jockey in the 1950s. In many ways, her words also describe conditions faced by black women throughout the history of American broadcasting. Whether they were entertainers or entrepreneurs, black women have always been marginalized by the radio industry. As entertainers, black women were assigned demeaning, stereotypic roles rooted in racism and sexism while receiving salaries not commensurate with their talent. Limited in their ability to obtain management positions and lacking the financial resources necessary to become entrepreneurs, black women have had difficulty making the transition to positions of power in broadcasting, just as they have in other areas of American society.

Radio was the successor to and heavily influenced by earlier popular forms of American entertainment such as minstrel shows and vaudeville. In those media, white performers were made up to look like blacks, with negatively exaggerated physical features. They portrayed people of African descent as lazy, ignorant, and amoral; black performers also exhibited those characteristics out of economic necessity. The broadcast industry subscribed to and perpetuated vaudeville's popular misconceptions.

Radio's negative representation of black women was derived from whites' perception that there were two types of black women: “Mammy” and “Jezebel.” As described by Deborah Gray White in Ar'n't I A Woman?, “Mammy” was revered by her “white folks” because she loved and cared for them, often to the detriment of her own biological family. At the same time, she was seen as respected and even feared by blacks because of her “closeness” to and “power” derived from whites. “Jezebel,” on the other hand, was viewed as a sexual temptress who was hedonistic and lacking in self control. In modified form, both appeared as early radio characters. It is not surprising, then, that the first women of color portrayed on radio in dramatic and comedy roles were maids.

Pathfinders and Pioneers

Among the pioneer performers was Hattie McDaniel, best remembered for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, for which she became the first black to receive an Academy Award. Born in 1895 to a former slave, her singing talent was honed in a family minstrel show and was her entrée into radio. During the 1920s, she sang on a weekly show broadcast in Denver, the first person of color to do so. Her brother, who was also a radio performer, arranged a role for McDaniel as a cook in a sketch entitled “Miss Ann's Kitchen.” Her performance led to a starring role as a maid in a show called The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour. McDaniel thus became the first black headliner in a nonmusical role in radio. At a salary of $5 per week, she was forced to continue working as a domestic to support herself.

McDaniel was the first to have a continuing role on a nationally syndicated program, The Beulah Show. Beulah, a maid, had been a supporting character on a show called Show Boat and was originally played by a white man. (This practice was common, a remnant from vaudeville and minstrel shows, where whites mimicked blacks.) So popular was McDaniel as the feisty maid that she was signed to a seven-year contract, eventually earning $2000 per week. Capitalizing on her popularity and insuring her own dignity, McDaniel inserted clauses in her contract that gave her script approval and stipulated that she would not be required to speak in dialect.

Louise Beavers succeeded McDaniel as Beulah. Best known for her role in the movie Imitation of Life, Beavers was an experienced entertainer who spent the bulk of her career fulfilling America's expectation of black actresses: portraying maids. She differed from McDaniel in that her characterizations were less acerbic and more aligned with the “loyal servant” image dear to southern hearts.

Juanita Hall  Juanita Hall is seen here in a photograph from Carl Van Vechten in 1949. Hall played the lead in the first all-black radio soap opera, The Story of Ruby Valentine.

Library of Congress

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Among others who began their radio careers playing maids was Lillian Randolph, who starred in Lula and Leander in the early 1930s. She was the first black to play a maid as a primary character. Randolph continued to be cast as a maid throughout the 1940s, playing Birdie on The Great Gildersleeve and Daisy on The Billie Burke Show. In 1947, Edith Wilson became the first black actor to portray Aunt Jemima—of pancake fame—for the Quaker Oats Company; her three predecessors were white women. In addition to singing, Aunt Jemima provided household hints and recipes. Ruby Dandridge, mother of the actor Dorothy Dandridge, had recurring roles as Beulah's friend, Oriole, on The Beulah Show, and as Geranium on The Judy Canova Show. In both instances, the characters were maids, one-dimensional and inane.

White America had long recognized and appreciated the musical talents of African Americans, so radio executives saw in them an opportunity for increased revenue. The first to headline a network show was the singer Alberta Hunter, an established star in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures. In 1937, during a successful European engagement, she did a shortwave radio broadcast from Paris to America. This led to a five-minute show on NBC where she was backed by a sixteen-piece, all-white orchestra. Later the internationally distributed show was expanded to fifteen minutes, and it aired twice weekly from 1937 to 1939.

Other female musicians performing on radio during its first two decades included Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and Lena Horne. Smith, a blues singer who regularly appeared in tent shows and speakeasies, occasionally sang on the radio. Waters and Horne, established performers in night clubs, on Broadway, and in films, made frequent guest appearances on radio programs. The jazz singers Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday were also featured singers during the Big Band era (1935–1945).

During World War II, black women made tremendous strides as broadcast entertainers. Lena Horne played noncomedic, nonmusical roles on Suspense Theater and Duffy's Tavern. Juanita Hall also landed choice roles. Following her successful run as Bloody Mary in the Broadway production of South Pacific, she played the lead in The Story of Ruby Valentine, which was radio's first all-black soap opera. With Ruby Dee in a supporting role, this 1942 show was broadcast on the short-lived National Negro Network, whose home station was WDIA in Memphis, Tennessee. A positive portrayal of black women was the idea behind the CBS special “Heroines in Bronze.” Produced in collaboration with the National Urban League, the show presented the heroines Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman to the public and featured a speech by the educator and reformer Mary McLeod Bethune. In spite of biracial accolades, the show was never repeated, and the public retained its negative perception of black women.

Amos 'n' Andy

From 1928 to 1960, one of the most popular radio shows in America was Amos 'n' Andy, a comedy about members of the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge Hall. The characters Amos, Andy, George “Kingfish” Stevens, Lightnin', and Calhoun personified every negative stereotype of black men; they were originally played by the white actors Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. Initially called Sam 'n' Henry, the show was based in the rural South. When the characters moved to an urban setting, it was apparent that women should be included in the lodge members' daily lives. Gosden and Correll, uncomfortable doing female voices, created female characters whose voices were never heard. Instead the women were projected through male characters talking about them, talking to them on the telephone, and reading letters from them. The first such woman was Ruby Taylor, Amos's educated, middle-class fiancée. Ruby was always referred to in a respectful manner, and the couple's interaction was portrayed seriously. This was a logical extension of Amos's character, as he was the only serious, hardworking, noncomedic member of the lodge. Other characters were depicted as conniving women whose goal was to obtainhusbands;aftermarriage they immediately became nagging, shrewish, controlling wives. Such portraits were typical of the era's comedy and were applied to women of both races. When black female characters finally did speak on Amos 'n' Andy, they were played by white actors, using dialect.

By the 1940s, with the show at the height of its popularity and expanded from fifteen minutes to a half-hour, black female actors were hired and a variety of female personalities arose. The best known was Sapphire Stevens, the wife of Kingfish. Ernestine Wade, a vocalist and organist who began performing professionally at thirteen, had several movies to her credit before assuming the role of Sapphire. Although the term “Sapphire” is used in contemporary society to describe an unpleasant, domineering, unreasonable black woman, Wade's character was a decent, hardworking woman dedicated to helping her family. Like Joyce, the wife of the Langston Hughes character, Jesse B. Simple, Sapphire had middle-class aspirations and was determined to avail herself and her husband of Harlem's cultural activities. Although she sometimes did domestic work to alleviate her family's financial crisis, Sapphire was also employed as a secretary and a salesperson. More often than not, she eschewed dialect and was very articulate. Thus, Wade brought America its first multifaceted black female radio personality.

By contrast, Sapphire's mother, played by Amanda Randolph, appeared as a brash, belligerent, constant annoyance to her son-in-law, Kingfish. Randolph's sister, Lillian, was cast as the much-married gold digger, Madame Queen, who used trickery, flattery, and feminine wiles in an unsuccessful effort to marry Andy. The Randolph sisters were accomplished actors who had enjoyed success in several entertainment media. Nevertheless, Lillian Randolph, in preparation for her role as Madame Queen, was required to study for three months with a white vocal coach because she didn't sound like a Negro. White performers had mastered “Negro dialect” with its mispronounced and inappropriately used words and expressions. African American women had to be taught the dialect; thus they were forced to become parodies of themselves in order to obtain employment.

Historian Melvin Ely notes in The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy that blacks resented “a white man teaching a Negro how to act like a white man acting like a Negro.” Economic survival required that the resentment be masked. Lillian Randolph, a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, spoke against the group's resolutions condemning negative portrayals of black people. She believed that America was not ready for realistic portrayals of her people. She feared that if blacks refused the roles they would lose income and the stereotypes would be perpetuated by white actors.

Correll, a co-creator of Amos 'n' Andy, realized that due to the increasing popularity of television, the days of radio comedies were numbered. His statement, “Radio is being taken over by the disc jockeys and newscasts and there's no room for us any more,” was prophetic. With America's changing tastes came new opportunities in radio for which comedic, dramatic, or musical skills were not necessarily required. Black women were ready to hear and be heard in a different and less demeaning manner.

The Disc Jockeys

White America, still holding to the Mammy/Jezebel image, was not completely accepting of black women in positions of prominence on the radio. Ethel Waters's 1933 network show was canceled after three weeks when southern NBC stations threatened a boycott and Amoco Oil withdrew its sponsorship offer. By the end of World War II, broadcasters and sponsors were aware of the burgeoning buying power of African Americans. Nationwide, stations revamped their formats to cater to black people's interests. Music was important in this effort, and broadcasters began to play blues, jazz, gospel, and classical music, both recorded and live.

New York radio stations were in the forefront of the effort to hire women disc jockeys. Ruth Ellington, sister of the famed composer Duke Ellington, hosted a weekly show playing jazz recordings and interviewing black musicians. The internationally known pianist Nora Holt hosted the nation's first program featuring classical music by black composers. Evelyn Robinson, sister of the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, was host of Life Begins at Midnight, a live broadcast from the Palm Café in Harlem. In other parts of the nation, women made inroads into the profession by targeting issues of particular interest to women.

The trailblazer was station WDIA in Memphis, Tennessee, the first station to offer programming specifically for black audiences. Owned by two white men, the station first broadcast in 1947, and in 1949 it launched its first program directed toward women. Called Tan Town Homemakers, the hour-long weekday program was hosted by the socially prominent Willa Monroe. In addition to recorded music by popular artists, Monroe offered household and child-rearing tips, recipes, information on church and society events, marital counseling, and interviews with prominent black women. The immediate success of Tan Town Homemakers dispelled doubts that there was a population of middle-class black women hungry to have the industry meet their needs. In less than a year, Monroe was reaching 40 percent of the Memphis audience and was holding off-the-air counseling sessions to help women improve their homemaking and parenting skills. The homemaker show concept spread rapidly, and soon women hosted similar shows throughout the South and in Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

While WDIA was home to numerous music/homemaker shows, the station's preeminent female disc jockey was Martha Jean “The Queen” Steinberg, who, prior to joining the station, produced fashion shows and was active in Memphis black society. She began her radio career with a male co-host in 1954, but station management quickly realized that her sultry voice would appeal to male listeners and made her sole host of Nite Spot, featuring recorded rhythm and blues music. When Willa Monroe retired, Steinberg became the host of Tan Town Homemakers, and within ten years she was the country's most famous black female disc jockey.

In the late 1960s Steinberg relocated to Detroit, Michigan, where her popularity soared at WQBH. Appealing to the city's large blue-collar population, she “saluted” different segments of the audience, such as bus drivers and beauticians, flattering them about their contributions to the community. She told her female listeners when it was payday at the local auto plants, advising them to go to the factories to get money from their husbands to put in the bank. She is credited with calming Detroit during the 1968 riots by broadcasting gospel music and prayers. Perhaps moved by that experience, Steinberg changed from rhythm and blues to a gospel format and subsequently became a minister. Promoting the station as the “voice of the community,” her show became a fund-raising vehicle for the city's indigent population.

While WDIA allowed its female disc jockeys some autonomy and individuality, the OK Group, broadcasting to blacks in four Southern states, did not. Its female employees were required to use derogatory on-air names. Novella Smith, who resented being known as “Dizzy Lizzy,” used her correct name during each station break as a means of asserting her identity. Irene Johnson, after a series of arguments with management, won the right to use her given name instead of identifying herself as “Miss Mandy.” As Hattie McDaniel had done years earlier, both women used their popularity as leverage in asserting a positive identity.

Gospel Disc Jockeys

In the mid-1930s, executives exploited the economic potential of gospel music by broadcasting live shows featuring gospel musicians. Shows were daily in some areas, weekly in others, and rarely more than twenty minutes long. With the advent of television, competition among radio stations increased, and as more stations targeted the African American market, gospel programming increased in both duration and the number of shows. On the East Coast, several female hosts had programs directed toward the religious community. Pioneers were Katherine “Kitty” Broady, broadcasting from Annapolis, Maryland, in 1958, and Mary Dee, who hosted programs in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, commuting between the two cities.

Probably the most influential disc jockey in terms of overall impact on the gospel industry was Pauline Wells Lewis, a broadcaster in Maryland and Washington, DC, for more than fifty years. She began her career as a gospel singer on an Annapolis radio station in 1942. By 1950 she hosted Inspiration Time, a five-hour daily program. The format of her weekday morning show included recorded gospel music, special dedications to the sick and bereaved, interviews with musicians, church announcements, an inspirational poem, and requests for donations for community projects. Lewis formed “The Sunshine Club,” composed of audience members who wrote to or visited the sick and the lonely. Additionally, she regularly visited nursing homes to personally interact with her audience.

Lewis sponsored gospel programs as fund-raisers for her church, an innovation at the time as most churches preferred anthems, hymns, and (occasionally) male quartet singers. She favored soloists, choirs, and mixed-gender ensembles, inviting little-known performers from across the country. Banned from hotels during the era of segregation, the musicians stayed in Lewis's home or in the homes of her church members. Many of gospel's greatest musicians, such as Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Clara Ward Singers, the Roberta Martin Singers, and the Rev. James Cleveland, were indebted to Lewis for her hospitality and for promoting their records and enhancing their careers. Affectionately known as “Aunt Pauline,” her popularity was such that her endorsement of a recording or a product was an assurance of financial success. In 1981, Lewis was presented with a gold record by the Gospel Music Workshop of America, Inc. (GMWA), for her contributions to the industry through the broadcast media.

The same year the GMWA honored Lewis, it named Vashti Murphy McKenzie its gospel announcer of the year. A graduate of the University of Maryland's School of Journalism, she had worked in gospel broadcasting for eleven years. A former model and television reporter, McKenzie was hired as program director of WYCB-AM in Washington, DC. Community service projects were common activities for female disc jockeys, including McKenzie. She organized volunteers who sponsored health fairs and provided clothing for the needy. She also initiated atwenty-four-hour crisis hot line and broadcast fund-raisers for the NAACP.

As a disc jockey in Baltimore, McKenzie moved toward a broadcast ministry with the “Spiritual Vitamin” portion of her show, during which she read a Bible passage and gave a two- to three-minute sermonette. Following her ordination, McKenzie became the first woman to pastor an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Baltimore. In 2000, the Rev. Dr. McKenzie was elected the first female bishop of the AME Church and assigned to southeast Africa.

Executives and Entrepreneurs

There have been numerous successful black women in radio as entertainers and disc jockeys, but only a few have succeeded away from the microphone. Hosts of homemaker shows were often called “Director of Women's Activities,” but there was no authority inherent in the title. Not until after the civil rights era did black women begin to exercise a degree of influence and power. Cathy Hughes served as sales director and as the first female vice president and general manager at Howard University's WHUR. In 1978, Vashti McKenzie became program director at WYCD in Washington, DC, and WAYE in Baltimore, with sole authority to determine what music, interviews, and comments would air. In 1982, Martha Steinberg moved from disc jockey to vice president and general manager of a Detroit station, WQBH, with sole authority for approving expenditures. Dorothy Brunson progressed from assistant controller to assistant general manager and general manager at black-owned Inner City Broadcasting in New York. Executive experiences provided a springboard to station ownership for more than twelve women, including Steinberg, Hughes, and Brunson.

Born poor in Harlem, Brunson was at one time a rebellious student. She was inspired to make positive lifechanges after reading a biography of Mary McLeod Bethune. Brunson never worked as a disc jockey; her first radio job following college graduation was as a bookkeeper. She became the first female radio station owner in 1979 when she purchased WEBB in Baltimore from legendary singer James Brown, who was in bankruptcy at that time. By 1985, WEBB had moved up in the local ratings from the last of thirty-five stations to fifteenth. Brunson is credited with developing the “urban contemporary” broadcasting format, which for the first time found white popular music and music favored by black audiences played on the same station. Her goal was to convince advertisers, who spent less money at black stations, that certain products crossed ethnic lines. As a result, WEBB's revenue increased from $186,000 to $400,000 and America experienced a melding of musical tastes.

As of 2004, thirty-eight-year-old Alfred Liggins was president and chief executive officer of Radio One, Inc., the largest black-owned broadcasting organization in the country. Consisting of sixty-six radio stations, one television station, and two thousand employees, the $2.7 billion company was created, nurtured, and developed by Liggins's mother, Catherine Hughes. Her career began in 1969 at a black-owned station in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1971 she became a lecturer at Howard University's School of Communications. She was named sales director of the campus station, WHUR, in 1973, and she successfully increased sales revenue from $300,000 to $3.5 million. In 1980 she purchased WOL-AM, and in 1995 she paid $40 million for WKYS. Radio One stock went public in 1999, making Hughes the first African American woman with a company on the stock exchange. The company reached more than eighteen million listeners daily with a format of popular music and talk shows. Additionally, Hughes received numerous honors for her commitment to community service.

In approximately eighty years of involvement in the broadcast industry, black women moved from primarily portraying debased characters to a limited number of positions of ownership and control. Throughout this period, they endured the double burden of racism and sexism. Typically, they protested—overtly and covertly—against those burdens while simultaneously working for community uplift and improved opportunities for women in the industry. Nevertheless their contributions were minimalized by some observers, who said that the early characters portrayed by these pioneers negatively impacted public (that is, white) perceptions of black women. Ernestine Wade found it necessary to defend the character “Sapphire” and argue that she and others did not demean blacks, but rather paved the way for the future. Considering America's historically racist, sexist climate and the overall impotence of black women, people like Michelle Norris, who in 2002 became National Public Radio's first black female host, are indeed indebted to Wade and her colleagues.

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