AM radio

Spellman loses radio show after speaking out against injustice.

Erudite agricultural extension agent Cecil L. Spellman not only editorialized about the Scottsboro boys in the Norfolk Journal and Guide, he spoke of the case during his weekly program on Wilson’s WGTM radio station. He was immediately dropped.

His was not the only African-American programming impacted by “radical revisions” in station policy. The Laddie Springs Orchestra (who were they??) had been booted from the main studio to Studio B, a space so small that a quartet would have felt squeezed. The orchestra cut ties “rather than suffer further indignities.” Handel’s Chorus, Hartford Bess‘ widely acclaimed singing group, was directed to limit their vocal offerings to “old spirituals.” No classical pieces or solo numbers. Chorus president Jack Sherrod announced they would leave the station, too, as they preferred variety.

In response, businessmen Daniel McKeithan, William F. Potts, Spellman, and Sherrod made plans for a 15-week half-hour weekly show to start in September. (On WGTM??? How would that work? Did it work?)

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 14 August 1937.

Sepia Serenade.

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Wilson Daily Times, 7 September 1948.

In this Historymakers.org interview, educator/musician/poet Carl W. Hines Jr. spoke of his early musical influences in Wilson: “I discovered rhythm and blues early in my youth and in my hometown, there was one station that played Black music for an hour or two during the day. CPS [Sepia] Serenade was the name of the program, and us teenagers would listen to [Sepia] Serenade during that time, and then we would listen to Nashville, Tennessee, Randy’s Record Mart [WLAC], I don’t know if you know about that, but, this was the days before rock and roll, so, we would listen to Randy’s Record Mart late at night, and we would hear rhythm and blues, the Black music of the day.”

Sepia Serenade was one of two radio shows hosted by Theodore “Ted” Hooker, first on WVOT, then WGTM by the early 1950s. Hooker was Wilson’s first African-American on-air personality, and his one-hour programs were first to showcase “race music.”

The Wilson Chapel Four.

The Wilson Chapel Four, of which there were five, were the first African-American gospel group to perform on local radio station WGTM.

WGTM regularly published its schedule in the Daily Times. Here, the Wilson Chapel Four were slotted in at 8:30 Sunday night.

Wilson Daily Times, 30 August 1941.

Photo courtesy of the Freeman Round House and African-American Museum.