The Scream and Other Tales: Listening for Detroit Radio History with the Vertical File

Abstract

In the E. Azalia Hackley Collection’s “Detroit Radio” subject file at the Detroit Public Library, a handful of newspaper clippings describe a radio strike held on then AM radio station WJLB. The Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, and Michigan Chronicle picked up the story. The first week-long walkout ended just before Christmas 1970 after then black program director Al Perkins had been fired (Wittenberg, 1970). Detroit News writer Brogan quoted “disc jockey” Martha Jean as saying, “I’ve been in radio 15 years … and I’m still not able to be an individual. … It’s pathetic to have [to] take a black or white side but we’re fighting for everybody in this radio industry. Black disc jockeys are insecure because we have so few places to work (1970a).” Strikers asked for support from the AFL-CIO (Wittenberg, 1970) in addition to existing representation by the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers (NATRA) (Brown, 1970). At one point the strikers, who were also supported by the NAACP, moved their picket to WJLB’s Booth Broadcasting owner John L. Booth’s home in the East Side Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms (Detroit News, 1970a). Though a Wayne County Judge declared the picketing illegal (Brogan, 1970b), “sympathizers” eventually joined strikers outside the station’s downtown studios in the Broderick Tower with signs that read “Black management for a black community” and “We don’t need a plantation station!” (Michigan Chronicle, 1970b).

We sway the minds of our community and if we can’t stand up for a principle, we don’t need to be on the air.

— Martha Jean the Queen (Brown, 1970)

While [sic] all the daily tales of defaulting cities, proposed increases in income taxes for city residents, cuts in services and threatened layoffs, a little non-static music really clears the clutter from the brain, thus permitting fresh perspectives to enter. Music can be much more than a part of the décor in an airport waiting room and its values go beyond its use as a substitute for novocain [sic] at the dentist’s office.

— Ken Cockrel (Cockrel, 1975)

“They say radio is war. It may be a physical war, but it’s not a mental war. What gets played here shouldn’t be judged by what’s happening in New York or Los Angeles,” [Mojo] says. “They should take a look at what’s happening here in Detroit, at unemployment. They should count the raggedy cars and the people walking around at 3 a.m. with nowhere to go.”

— Electrifying Mojo (Borey, 1982)