The First Black Radio Announcer (Part 5)

That radio tower to the left is on the roof of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. [source]  Like many posts this one starts with an intriguing side note from an article about something else. In this case it's a piece [link] by Dale Patterson about early black disc jockeys.

"Other black radio pioneers included Atlanta's WJTL, which in 1935 offered a daily 15-minute newscast about the black community and delivered by black announcers."

1370 WJTL-AM was not a long-lived station. In fact it only existed from 1931 to 1935 under those calls. The station signed on as 1310 WRBI-AM in Tifton, Georgia in 1928 owned by the Kents Furniture & Music Store. In 1930 they changed the frequency to 1350.  It became Oglethorpe University's first radio station in 1931. Initially they shifted the frequency to 810 and operated as a daytimer at 100 watts. In June they shifted to 1370 where they were granted unlimited hours at 250 watts. A 1973 history text on Atlanta claims that in the early years of the station it aired only educational programming and extramural instruction. Students could enroll at Oglethorpe via radio and were charged and each course was broadcast 1 hour three days a week for a semester. Texts and general requirements were handled by mail. Students had to mail their notes to their professors to validate their listening. Professors could also answer the questions of radio students by mail or by phone.

In 1935 the school sold the station to the Atlanta Broadcasting Co. who changed the calls to WATL-AM. The station appears in Erik Barnouw's canonical radio book A History of Broadcasting in the United States: A Tower in Babel because, anachronistically, it sold advertising. The laws that forbid advertising on non-commercial stations today didn't exist in 1933. They were one of 12 educational stations that were known to be selling ads in that year. This was ostensibly to "defray the cost of scholarly journals."  The others were: WGST, KOOW, KOB, KFJM, WESG, WHAZ, WJBU, WEHC, WWL and WHAD. It might have led to the City of Atlanta v. Oglethorpe University case wherein Atlanta was trying to levy taxes on WJTL.

So why was this school, in the segregated South airing a black community newscast? The programming was mixed and the aired a lot of what was then called "hillbilly music."  They hosted performers such as Fiddlin' John Carson, The Bill Childers Strong Band, Riley Puckett, The Dixie String Band, Ted Hawin's Mountaineers, the North Georgia Buggy Riders, The Skillet Lickers, but Of the names I've seen only Carl Talton aka Cowboy Jack, was a regular and began his career there with a daily 15-minute spot. They were even home to the Fulton Country Jamboree program.

Despite all the country music they were a fairly forward-thinking station. A local Mormon church had a program. They even rebroadcast programs from WOSU.  The Oglethorpe University website merely states that the station was " dedicated to the broadcast of educational programming designed for the public to take additional instruction on various University subjects."  If true that must have been changing by 1933 as they were taking in musicians off the street by that time. In his book Fireside Politics, author Douglas B. Craig posits that this was the first systematic attempt to use radio as a medium of civic information and education for black listeners. That might even be true, even if it's impossible to prove. As a source he cites the book Don't Touch That Dial by J. Fred MacDonald who makes no such claim.

Unfortunately I've never been able to find a name of a single announcer from that news program. Whoever they were, they were some of the very first black voices in broadcasting. I've found some staff names: Station Manager David Brinkmoeller, Staff Director Lynne Brannen, Engineer Frank Parkins, Program Director Robert McConnell, and Rex Dantzler selling those dubious ads. But I have never connected the dots as to who begat the program. Despite the time elapsed since then the station still serves the black community of Atlanta.  It's calls today are 1380 WAOK-AM and it's airs a black gospel format.  

*****If any reader has a copy of Step down, Dr. Jacobs: the Autobiography of an Autocrat by Thornwell Jacobs I'd like to hear from them. It is rare and is supposed to have detailed information on WJTL.

college courses by radio

Only recently have college course taken over the internet gained any level of legitimacy. When I was very young I clearly recall people earning degrees by mail. The quality of these diplomas is debatable of course, but it's the application of media that interests us here aye?

There was also a time when college courses were taught by radio. One of the first was the station AMRAD in Boston,MA. But it was WGI that was the very first radio station to offer college courses by radio. In the year 1922, they began a series of twice weekly lectures by Tufts University faculty.

In the 1930s Oglethorpe University fostered many innovations among which was the "University of the Air" experiment, which broadcast college courses by radio in the 1930s. It was not the first, since WGI beat them to it, but it was a notable experiment, which lasted about five years, broadcasting college credit courses on the air waves. At the very least it gained widespread attention to their campus radio station, 1400 WJTL-AM. 

Incidentally it's named after benefactor John Thomas Lupton. Sadly only a few years later in 1935, WJTL was purchased by a private organization and moved to downtown Atlanta. The call letters were changed to WATL-AM and eventually WCOH-AM. To quote William Bianchi:

"From roughly 1929 through 1945, two network SOAs flourished: NBC's Music Appreciation Hour (MAH) and CBS’s American School of the Air (ASA). At their peak, they reached a combined weekly audience of approximately two million students, about 7% of the nation’s K-12 school children."

 

Today there do not appear to be any active college courses by radio in the US. But in Australia the RADIO AUSTRALIA has a lifelong learning program that carries college courses by radio. 

[I notice in s related licensing fandango, 2nd adjacent 1420 WATB-AM is moving to 1430... is the relatively under-powered 1400 stick moving back to Atlanta?] 

**Apparently not. WATB ultimately remained on 1420 and in Decatur.  But it did change calls to WWSZ-AM in 2018. WATB had been issued a construction permit from the FCC to change its operating frequency to 1430 kHz and increase its daytime power to 50,000 watts and nighttime power to 174 watts directional. But this change was dependent on WGFS-AM  in Covington, GA moving from first adjacent 1430 kHz to 1220 kHz. They did not. But they did change calls in 2019 to WYKG.