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Wheelin' on Beale: How Wdia-Memphis Became the Nation's First All-Black Radio Station and Created the Sound That Changed America
Examines how the decision to change the format of WDIA to target a Black audience altered the self-image of the station's listeners
264 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 5, 2018
History is as neat as a tornado’s wake. For the sake of sanity, historical events are oversimplified. The factors that lead up to an event are as many as the changes the event creates. If I refuse to take a historical note at face value and dive into the details, I know I run the risk of getting lost in those same details. So I’ve learned to take my knowledge in fun-sized bars. Then, when time permits, I go back for the king-sized goodie. I recently had fun learning that WDIA in Memphis was the first radio station to use all African American DJs and all African American programming. Beyond the fact that I can thank the station for B.B. King, I knew very little about the history of the station. Until I read this book.
The history of WDIA is filled with kingly characters and seeming contradictions. I can’t hope to cover them all, so I’ll take three choice cuts that will hopefully whet your appetite and inspire you to go read this book. The first is how altruistic and capitalistic goals aren’t mutually exclusive. The second is one of those altruistic goals, The Goodwill Fund. The third is how WDIA was only possible because of segregation.
WDIA started like all other Southern radio stations, programming was created with a white audience in mind. It was only when they found themselves one nail short of a closed coffin that they turned their attention towards the underserved African American population. The owners knew they needed to make a drastic change to stay alive and so with the knowledge that Chicago let Jack L. Cooper on the air (though that was the only African American programming the station did) way back in 1929 (p. 156), they decided to hire Nat D. Williams in 1948 and their ever-so-slowly migration to all African American programming began.
It started as a way to stay in business and just so happened to become a touchstone moment in racial relations in America. They slowly rolled out new DJs with new programming because they knew that moving too fast would scare away the big sponsors that didn’t want their brands associated with African Americans. And even when that nut was cracked, they figured that they needn’t give new sponsors a discount because of the unknown viability of the African American market. They charge more, not less, for advertisers going forward. That lead to criticism that the owners weren’t in it because they cared about the African American community, just the bottom line:
“Critics might suggest- as one did- that WDIA was out ‘to capture not so much the hearts and minds of the black community, but rather their pocketbooks.’ In actual fact, however, by taking the lead in community involvement, the station solidified its listening audience and thus ensure its own commercial success.” p. 218
This theme of being able to help fill their wallets and fill the need for African Americans to hear their own voices on the radio, runs throughout the entire book. It did make me question whether WDIA deserves such a hallowed spot in American History but that question was quickly answered.
The Goodwill Fund was financed by The Goodwill Revue concert at which the performers appeared free of charge. B.B. King didn’t waste any time becoming hugely popular and would often headline the early shows. The Revue became so popular because it was entertainment that African Americans could actually attend. Segregation had dropped such an ironic weight on Memphis as concerts performed by African Americans in the African American dominated Beale Street at which only whites were allowed to attend. So here was an event that African Americans could attend, not only that but it would also feature music of their tastes. It was so successful that they eventually added a second annual show, The Starlight Revue.
The profits of each of these shows were completely put into the Goodwill Fund. The money was then put back into the African American community. With it WDIA was able to do such things as buy and operate buses that would take physically handicapped African American children to school. They previously couldn’t get to school and so didn’t get an education. WDIA also bought a housing development to help African Americans be able to actually afford to live somewhere. They also funded not just one or two but hundreds of Little League Baseball teams. Critics claimed that WDIA got buckets of free advertising from such ventures, and they did with their call-letters emblazoned on the buses and jerseys, but the fact that the fund was kept completely separate from operating expenses scored a point for altruism. But what’s more is that when the original owners sold the station and the new owners wanted to grab the cash from the Goodwill Fund, they couldn’t. It wasn’t part of the purchase.
Moving on from monetary segregation to human segregation brings me to the uncomfortable truth of WDIA’s prosperity: it could only have formed in the Jim Crow South. The author makes the claim that the major driving force behind racism:
“...was that nobody thought much about anything pertaining to racial matters. Apathy, not white hostility, was the devil. Consciousness, in short, had not yet been raised.” p. 177
I’m not sure I agree with that. He was a control board operator at WDIA so his view is, he admits, skewed. So perhaps that’s how he saw things. As an outsider looking in decades later, I can see his point that WDIA was so successful because no one thought African Americans were worth programming for. WDIA took a leap of faith and was rewarded with a monopoly. They did so much social good with their power that success fed success. The White Southerners let them do their own thing because they weren’t negatively affected by it. In fact, some companies (always run by whites) even profited greatly by buying ads. All through the fifties, this unique situation thrived. Then came the sixties.
The push towards integration spelled the end of WDIA’s unique power, and it’s monopoly. Even NAACP leaders critiqued the DJs for giving African Americans a bad name by laughing and clowning as they did. While WDIA still exists to this day, and still runs solely African American programming, it’s a much different station from what it was in the beginning. There’s a sadness to this fact. The DJs bemoan the change, while also celebrating the move toward true equality. It’s an uncomfortable nostalgia but it’s the product of its time. Because of segregation, African Americans needed to find their own way with little or no help. In fact, they often had more obstacles to success. WDIA is one of these successes. However, it came in a time when being successful thanks to the separate but equal myth was fast dying. The original format of WDIA was one of the friendly fire casualties of the Civil Rights Movement. I wonder, though, how sad I would feel about its demise if America was farther along the path to racial equality? Because, I’d argue, that while we are undoubtedly farther, we’re not as far as we should be. But that’s not a topic for this review.
If you like The Blues, Gospel, or racial history in America, this is a great read.
The history of WDIA is filled with kingly characters and seeming contradictions. I can’t hope to cover them all, so I’ll take three choice cuts that will hopefully whet your appetite and inspire you to go read this book. The first is how altruistic and capitalistic goals aren’t mutually exclusive. The second is one of those altruistic goals, The Goodwill Fund. The third is how WDIA was only possible because of segregation.
WDIA started like all other Southern radio stations, programming was created with a white audience in mind. It was only when they found themselves one nail short of a closed coffin that they turned their attention towards the underserved African American population. The owners knew they needed to make a drastic change to stay alive and so with the knowledge that Chicago let Jack L. Cooper on the air (though that was the only African American programming the station did) way back in 1929 (p. 156), they decided to hire Nat D. Williams in 1948 and their ever-so-slowly migration to all African American programming began.
It started as a way to stay in business and just so happened to become a touchstone moment in racial relations in America. They slowly rolled out new DJs with new programming because they knew that moving too fast would scare away the big sponsors that didn’t want their brands associated with African Americans. And even when that nut was cracked, they figured that they needn’t give new sponsors a discount because of the unknown viability of the African American market. They charge more, not less, for advertisers going forward. That lead to criticism that the owners weren’t in it because they cared about the African American community, just the bottom line:
“Critics might suggest- as one did- that WDIA was out ‘to capture not so much the hearts and minds of the black community, but rather their pocketbooks.’ In actual fact, however, by taking the lead in community involvement, the station solidified its listening audience and thus ensure its own commercial success.” p. 218
This theme of being able to help fill their wallets and fill the need for African Americans to hear their own voices on the radio, runs throughout the entire book. It did make me question whether WDIA deserves such a hallowed spot in American History but that question was quickly answered.
The Goodwill Fund was financed by The Goodwill Revue concert at which the performers appeared free of charge. B.B. King didn’t waste any time becoming hugely popular and would often headline the early shows. The Revue became so popular because it was entertainment that African Americans could actually attend. Segregation had dropped such an ironic weight on Memphis as concerts performed by African Americans in the African American dominated Beale Street at which only whites were allowed to attend. So here was an event that African Americans could attend, not only that but it would also feature music of their tastes. It was so successful that they eventually added a second annual show, The Starlight Revue.
The profits of each of these shows were completely put into the Goodwill Fund. The money was then put back into the African American community. With it WDIA was able to do such things as buy and operate buses that would take physically handicapped African American children to school. They previously couldn’t get to school and so didn’t get an education. WDIA also bought a housing development to help African Americans be able to actually afford to live somewhere. They also funded not just one or two but hundreds of Little League Baseball teams. Critics claimed that WDIA got buckets of free advertising from such ventures, and they did with their call-letters emblazoned on the buses and jerseys, but the fact that the fund was kept completely separate from operating expenses scored a point for altruism. But what’s more is that when the original owners sold the station and the new owners wanted to grab the cash from the Goodwill Fund, they couldn’t. It wasn’t part of the purchase.
Moving on from monetary segregation to human segregation brings me to the uncomfortable truth of WDIA’s prosperity: it could only have formed in the Jim Crow South. The author makes the claim that the major driving force behind racism:
“...was that nobody thought much about anything pertaining to racial matters. Apathy, not white hostility, was the devil. Consciousness, in short, had not yet been raised.” p. 177
I’m not sure I agree with that. He was a control board operator at WDIA so his view is, he admits, skewed. So perhaps that’s how he saw things. As an outsider looking in decades later, I can see his point that WDIA was so successful because no one thought African Americans were worth programming for. WDIA took a leap of faith and was rewarded with a monopoly. They did so much social good with their power that success fed success. The White Southerners let them do their own thing because they weren’t negatively affected by it. In fact, some companies (always run by whites) even profited greatly by buying ads. All through the fifties, this unique situation thrived. Then came the sixties.
The push towards integration spelled the end of WDIA’s unique power, and it’s monopoly. Even NAACP leaders critiqued the DJs for giving African Americans a bad name by laughing and clowning as they did. While WDIA still exists to this day, and still runs solely African American programming, it’s a much different station from what it was in the beginning. There’s a sadness to this fact. The DJs bemoan the change, while also celebrating the move toward true equality. It’s an uncomfortable nostalgia but it’s the product of its time. Because of segregation, African Americans needed to find their own way with little or no help. In fact, they often had more obstacles to success. WDIA is one of these successes. However, it came in a time when being successful thanks to the separate but equal myth was fast dying. The original format of WDIA was one of the friendly fire casualties of the Civil Rights Movement. I wonder, though, how sad I would feel about its demise if America was farther along the path to racial equality? Because, I’d argue, that while we are undoubtedly farther, we’re not as far as we should be. But that’s not a topic for this review.
If you like The Blues, Gospel, or racial history in America, this is a great read.
April 1, 2025
This book had so much potential to be great. Instead it became bogged down by redundancy, nostalgia for segregation era America, and the author’s own subjectivity in the, sometimes hard to find, narrative.
April 29, 2009
I admit the title is kinda lame and the focus is clearly narrow, but this book is really great. I read the whole thing in one sitting I was so into the story. The author actually worked as an intern at WDIA in Memphis, and describes first hand what it was like to be involved in such a revolutionary radio station's development. The story is a great example of how some people successfully fought the racial divisions in the United States in the post-war years.
December 24, 2007
The History of WDIA ... and a reminder of what radio used to be
August 23, 2015
INSPIRING--and it makes you wish radio could still be, and still be like this was!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews