Navigating Race and Language, While Trying to Bring Us “A Little Closer to the Truth”

Nancy T. McGlasson

By Nancy T. McGlasson

My grandmother, Lucile Barrow Turner (1895-1979), was the first woman to host a nationally broadcast radio program, and a White woman who performed Black songs and stories.

‘Cile, as she was called, first collected and studied the songs as a young girl attending church with Robert and Rosa Jones, a Black couple who worked for her parents in Blackstone, Virginia. Robert—the song-leader at Mt. Zion—and Rosa encouraged her interest in music and expl...