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.

I AM THE BRUCE!

Jet magazine called Ramon Bruce Philadelphia's first negro disk jockey. It was a damn shame when WHAT-AM later fired him for "flagrant neglect of duty" and "insubordination." Bruce claimed that they fired him for joining AFTRA because he was fired by telegram "55 minutes" after joining the union. For his part Bruce filed charges with the local labor board. It was a dirty public fight. Station Manager Dolly Banks even claimed that his absenteeism required that they hire Cal Williams and Jocko Henderson to fill in...and that they were the only staff that had joined any union.

Every biography says that Bruce was a former pro football player but they never say for what team. But, starting in December of 1945 on WHAT, Ramon Played Jazz and Rhythm and Blues all week then Gospel on Sunday. His show was initially called "Snap Club " and later "Ravin with Ramon."  He broadcast live from Club 421 and later Powelton's Cafe and Paul's Carnival Club. He was an amazingly popular DJ in a time when segregation was legal. He was receiving 1,000 letters a week by some reports and earning $50,000 dollars a year in an era when that was a CEO salary. He owned restaurants and a record store. He also released some very bad recordings that Billboard dismissed as the "delusions of Ronald Colman." People bought them anyway. In 1949 still on the upswing WHAT gave him an afternoon show as well.

The root cause of his firing is uncertain but in 1949 the FCC reported that Bruce "belongs to a number of negro and other organizations..." The language is vague but that sounds slightly accusatory. Ramon wrote a column for the paper the Philadelphia Afro-American. That kind of black pride was new and not welcome in all quarters. Maybe joining the union was the last straw for management.

Mr. Bruce went from WHAT to a new program 1230 WCMC-AM in Wildwood, NJ where he broadcast live from the Riptide Club. He was known as "The Bruce" which to my mind was the superior stage name anyway. He was making more money on the side booking R&B tours milking that growing audience for R&B in New Jersey. In 1954 he joined WNJR-AM, a bigger signal covering better parts of the Jersey market. He stayed there for about 3 years.

WAAT-AM in Newark, New Jersey, where he took off again. He continued to book theater tours Heartbeats, Cadillacs, Valentines, the Avalons, LaVern Baker, the Clovers and many others, they toured in the region playing shows in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.  He stayed on at WAAT until at least 1957 when he was listed in Sponsor magazine as having the best ratings of any program on the station. He was dead less than 5 years later after what the papers called "a long illness." He was only 39 years old. By 1968 Robert St. John was already describing Ramon Bruce in print as a "pioneer negro deejay." He certainly was that.