HBCU Radio Project, 150 East South College Street (2025)

25/08/2025

We would like you all to join is in congratulating the Center for Radio Preservation and Archives at WYSO for receiving the 2025 Diversity Award at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists! 🏆 This award is a testament to the power of collaboration, cultural preservation, and amplifying underrepresented voices through archival excellence. ✨

We’re incredibly proud to celebrate this honor alongside our partners and contributors. Special shoutout to Jenohn Euland, our Field Archivist at the Northeast Document Conservation Center, who will be traveling to the conference to accept the world on behalf of the team . ✨3

19/08/2025

Our latest preservation visit took us to Central State University’s WCSU!

Founded in 1962, WCSU Jazzy 88.9 FM was one of the first HBCU radio stations on the air and has since been a pioneer in amplifying Black voices, music, and culture. During this trip, our team recorded six oral histories with the people who helped shape this groundbreaking station’s legacy.

From general managers and technicians to alumni and university president Dr. Morakinyo A. O. Kuti, these stories reveal how WCSU became a hub for student creativity, community news, and cultural expression—all while navigating the challenges and triumphs of the broadcast industry.

Through our collaboration with the , these interviews will be made publicly available on YouTube, ensuring this vital history is not lost to time.

Follow our journey, share this work, and join us in preserving the voices that have defined generations.

15/08/2025

NABJ25 was nothing short of amazing as our intern and fellow journalists, Kayla and Olivia, traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, for the 50th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists, celebrating resilience, advocacy, and excellence! ✨

From attending inspiring panel sessions to networking with industry professionals, these two represented not only the project but also themselves as the young, talented emerging professionals they are. For Kayla, this was her first NABJ conference after successfully reinstating the UMABJ chapter on the campus of the University of Mississippi, where she proudly served as chapter president.

As a project, we are committed to continuously providing opportunities for our interns and annual fellows that promote growth and excellence. 📚 Check out our last post for a recap of 📸

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29/07/2025

Surrounded by brilliance, passion, and purpose at this years Association of African American Museums Conference! There’s nothing like networking and community building with like-minded individuals who are preserving history and shaping the future—together.

25/07/2025

Three days of networking, community building, and convening under one roof for one powerful cause: The 2025 Association of African American Museums Conference. ✨

This year’s theme, Voices of Democracy: Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act was demonstrated throughout a variety of panel discussions given by career professionals. Every year, it gets better as like-minded people gather in the name of history, preservation, and respect for museums as our institutional keepers of culture. From connecting with museum professionals to hearing from those who once led the fight for change, this conference continues to emphasize the importance of spaces that honor our legacy, resilience, and the power of community. 🙌🏾

23/07/2025

⛅️From a warm welcome at the historic Penn Centee , one of the nation’s first schools for formerly enslaved people, to an amazing Gullah n Geechie Mahn tour led by the insightful Seretha Tuttle, we were deeply moved by the history, culture, and legacy of St. Helena Island.🌴

Special thanks to Dr. Robert Adams, Kevin Holman, John Kamara, and our amazing dinner hosts, Chef Sherri and team, for setting the tone on day one at the Penn Center. 🍽️ On day 2, we explored places like the Fripp Plantation, the Coffin Point Community Praise House, the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, and the Penn Center Museum, all places with rich history, traditions and traces of resilience. ✨ The Penn Center Museum featured an exhibition from Johnnie Simmons titled “The Homecoming” whose style of art is pyrography, aka woodburning, and comprised mostly from memories of his time on the Island in 1941. There also was an extensive collection of Gullah artifacts that really communicated the essence of the people who lived, learned and thrived in the space during the time.

We ended our day in the company of one another with reflections, laughter and a great time as we celebrated our very own Assistant Director of Administration and Outreach, Phyllis Jeffers-Coly. There’s more to come, so stay tuned this week as the team prepares to take on the first day of !

21/07/2025

🛫 This week, the entire team is headed to Charleston, South Carolina for as we celebrate this year’s theme, “Voices of Democracy: Commemorating the Voting Rights Act’s 60th Anniversary.🗳️ We are excited to announce our panel discussion, “Audible Resistance: The Power of HBCU Radio Preservation” which will highlight constant efforts to uplift the legacy of HBCU radio and the voices that shaped movements and memory.🎙️

Stay tuned to keep up with the team while we’re out here sharing stories, building connections, and preserving the sound.

17/07/2025

It's Wednesday, which means an oral history has dropped on our YouTube! Part of the HBCU Radio Project, the Margaret Walker Center is serving as a repository for the histories of these stations and the community members who have been a part of them.

This week, Theron Carter remembers how his family impacted his early years, during which his exposure to church and secular music became an early influence in his passion for music. He also reflects on the tense and complex social dynamics in a segregated Savannah, Georgia, during the 1950s. Theron also had an early exposure to jazz and blues; his love for music even compelled him to sneak into performances in high school.

At Howard University, he came to enjoy music with Latin rhythms and Afro-Cuban influences and studied the evolution of genres like jazz from blues, spirituals, and work songs. Teachers played an important role in his life, supporting his passion and an interest in radio broadcasting. He became involved at Morgan State University and WEAA in Baltimore and worked with the Left Bank Jazz Society.

While serving in the Air Force, he was able to meet a wide variety of people that introduced him to new genres and artists. Theron emphasizes the intersection of music genres like jazz with Black history and the Black experience in the South, and the way radio has shaped his life personally.

📻 Listen now: https://youtu.be/if5zHYmen7Q?si=UvQwVerBRi8T-W1b

📻 Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

17/07/2025

Looking for your evening entertainment? Check out this week’s edition of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project!

This week, the spotlight falls on Les Gilford, who worked for WCSU in the 1980s as Operations Manager. Les was born in Bluffton, Indiana, but his family moved around a lot due to his father’s role as a Methodist minister. He spent many of his formative years in Lima, Ohio. There, the family lived in a majority-Black area, while Les recalls much of the rest of Lima being conservative, a dynamic that led to his early concern with social justice issues. His father focused heavily on community service, and his mother helped develop the ministry and conducted much work with the community as well. Growing up, Les was often looped in to help with their projects, becoming more involved with activities such as tutoring than with school activities. He even worked as a booking agent for a neighborhood band, the “Soul Strugglers.”

Les traces his interest in radio to the “eclectic” variety of music played by the CKLW station—which, he recalls, everyone listened to rather than the local stations in Lima. Les attended Antioch College; he remembers being there during student strikes and other turbulent events. Les majored in communications and business administration, and he worked with the campus station, WYSO. Though radio did not become a lifelong career for him, he worked at several stations, including WCSU, WLX, and WHBM. He discusses what he calls the “shoestring operation” at WCSU at the time, noting how they often had to problem solve and creatively utilize resources. He laughs at himself while reflecting on his early experiences with interviewing people. Overall, Les feels that it was a wonderful learning experience for both himself and the students that did work-study at the station.

📻 Listen now: https://youtu.be/vXRMawvWr0A?si=Cw3GDH7OxonPScZO

📻 Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

14/07/2025

We’re back with a brand new edition of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project!

Meet Sharon Kay, General Manager for Fisk University’s WFSK station. Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, as the youngest of four, Sharon reflects on growing up with “the world’s greatest parents.” She recalls a fun childhood in a close-knit, active community. Her family was both musical and athletic; Sharon played clarinet. Jazz played frequently in the household, and she remembers family members talking about going to local juke joints. Outside of being involved with their church, Sharon’s parents were lifetime members of the NAACP, and her father belonged to several veteran-related groups. She also reflects on social issues illustrated in her hometown, such as segregation and economic disparity.

After getting her GED, Sharon attended Washburn University as a criminal justice major, drawn in by the potential job security and problem-solving aspects of that career track; she had also worked at the university as the criminal justice film librarian. Ultimately, Sharon realized that she wanted to be a DJ. She worked as a mobile DJ for a while and developed her own persona, complete with an iconic outfit and stage name. She eventually created her own DJ business. Her first job in radio was at WREN, where she completed tasks such as changing the tapes and keeping the station on the air. Her journey into radio would go on to include a variety of opportunities and positions, during which she often learned on the job and gained new experiences, utilizing her love for problem-solving and for the industry itself.

📻 Listen now: https://youtu.be/Eho3pg2QIpI?si=DxugcsGfutqa4N7K

📻 Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

10/07/2025

Prairie View A&M University + Oral History and Preservation work = success ✨

The team convened in Houston to train our summer intern and provide workshop sessions on conducting an oral history interview. During this trip, we visited Prairie View A&M University to interview Tony Clomax, the Assistant Professor and Faculty Advisor for KPVU-TV , and Marquis Lofton, the Program Director for KPVU 91.3 FM Kayla, the summer intern, had the chance to interview Marquis Lofton for her first ever oral history. Through our collaboration with the Margaret Walker Center , both oral histories will be made publicly available. Additionally, Lofton provided our field archivist with a box of station materials for our partners to begin the process of digitizing, preserving, and archiving those resources for the station’s and PVAMU community’s use! 💜

HBCU Radio Project

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