Sixteen Sepia Spielers

I've never found the original article, but it's referenced in a few books and one very notable Billboard article by Nelson George in November of 1985. Over half a century later I have no way to vet their stats but it's all too believable. The key claim is as follows "In 1947, there were three thousand disc jockeys in the country, but only sixteen were black."

It appeared on page 44-47 in their December 1947 issue. Four years later Mr. George wrote a book The Death of Rhythm and Blues and the book appears again in the works cited. But it also was cited in Doowop: The Chicago Scene by Robert Pruter, Nothing but Love in God's Water by Robert Darden, African Americans and the Media by Catherine Squires. (For the record DJs had been called Spielers since at least 1939.) Their definition of a Spieler is unclear but we can infer much from the list itself (below) we can exclude one-shot performers. These are DJs with a music program, not news programs.

DJ	CALLS	CITY
Ed Baker	WJLB	Detroit, MI
Al Benson	WJJD	Chicago, IL
Bill Branch	WEAW	Evanston, IL
Ramon Bruce	WHAT	Philadelphia, PA
Jessie Burks	KXLW	St. Louis, MO
Jack L. Cooper	WSBC	Chicago, IL
Van Douglas	WJBK	Detroit, MI
Jack Gibson	WCFL	Chicago, IL
Bess Harris	KING	Seattle, WA
Eddie Honesty	WJOB	Hammond, IL
Harold Jackson	WOOK	Washington D.C.
Sam Jackson	WHIN	Providence, RI
Emerson Parker	WQQW	Washington D.C.
Sam Price	WPEN	Philadelphia, PA
Norfley Whitted	WDNC	Durham, NC
Woody Woodard	WLIB	Brooklyn, NY

I've written about most of these DJs at one time or another. So perhaps that is why Major Robinson for was not included for his NBC radio column was back in 1948... but he was also one year too late for the article. Mary Dee Dudley, the first black woman to be a radio DJ misses the list by one year. Holmes "Daddy-O'Daylie of WMAQ misses the mark. Even the great Bill Hawkins at WHK misses by just a few months. This was only a list of black DJs active in 1947. The year was very early in the struggle for civil rights so it's certain that the list is short.  But some of the omissions are notable: Bill Cook at WAAT, Dan Burley at WWRL, and Lavada Durst at KVET to name a few... but only a few.

But I should comment on math and veracity:  The number 16 is very specific and allows me to suggest possible omissions. The number 3,000 is clearly an estimate. According to a November 1947 report by the FCC there were only 142 commercial radio stations operating in the U.S. in 1942.  Radio researcher Jeff Miller was able to add 6 non-commercial stations [LINK] to that tally for a grand total of 148.  So that 3,000 number is assuming 20.27 DJs per radio station, and considering the number of part time radio stations in that era, is actually plausible. But it also means that 0.533% of all DJs in 1947 were black or that 99.46666% of all DJs were white. So adding a few names to this list changes exactly nothing.

Spider Burks

If Spider Burk wasn't the first black DJ in St. Louis, he was close. Some sources cite Wiley Price as the first in that metro. Jesse Dillon "Spider" Burks was a graduate of the Hampton Institute, now called Hampton University in Virginia. his nickname actually came from his basketball game, not his radio chops. He began working at 1320 KXLW-AM the year it signed on as a 1,000 watt daytimer. It's GM Guy Runnion, a former newscaster from KMOX-AM. The station had no network affiliation so Runnion scheduled a lot of DJs. DJ's just flipped records and talked music. In short, they were cost-effective. More here.

Btu Spider Burks was no ordinary DJ, he was a St. Louis native, and a champion of jazz radio and was a confirmed money-maker. He got into the station as part of a brokered 30 minute block. A local store owner on Easton Avenue sponsored a half-hour block of time and used Spider as his disc jockey. He became so popular that two shows, "After School Swing Session" and "Down the Alley Behind My House." By 1949 Radio Daily was already praising both his "jive-talk" and his "vast inter-racial audience." Around then he began broadcasting from the local jazz club "Peacock Alley."

But KXLW was not a big station, and certainly had some problems. In 1948 the station suffered some downtime due to a combination of zoning problems and an IBEW strike preventing the station's planned move to a new transmitter. The station went into receivership and was sold in 1949. The station was bought out by it's own share holders. Spider Burk was retained. In 1952 it was announced that his popular program would be transcribed for broadcast on stations in Washington D.C., Kansas City and Memphis.

Spider stayed on staff until 1956. it was that year Spider was refused  to play rock n' roll. In variety magazine he was quoted as saying "They wanted me to play 'gut-bucket' music. that's an ignorant type of music." So he moved on to 690 KSTL-AM, where he often broadcast from a cocktail lounge named Toast of the Town or his own Palace garden Club. He moved from there to 1600 KATZ-AM.The station was also a daytimer but it operated at 5,000 watts making it a move up for Spider at least from KXLW.He stayed there until 1961.

In 1963 after a two year absence, Spider returned to radio and to KATZ-AM.  Jet magazine described his return triumphantly, but noted that his return ended a boycott by KATZ. It intimates that his departure from KATZ was less than amiable, but falls short on details. He later worked at KADY-AM/KADI-FM  left the business in 1969 disgusted with the rise of Top-40 radio. He died in 1974.  Ebony magazine gave the year as 1975. He willed his body to science. More here.