Sounds Like Civil Rights: Werd Atlanta, Radio Advocacy, and the Black Freedom Struggle

摘要

"Sounds Like Civil Rights" explores radio's role in the black freedom struggle, both contemporary and throughout the Civil Rights Movement. The essay "A Brief History of WERD Atlanta and Airwave Advocacy, 1949-1968" turns a critical eye on WERD Atlanta's role in the Civil Rights Movement. WERD was an Atlanta-based radio station bought by businessman Jesse B. Blayton in the 1949, making it the first radio station owned and operated solely by African Americans in the United States. Through oral history interviews, station transcripts, and secondary source research, this thesis argues that WERD, though understudied by historians, was an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta. Through the defining of terms such as activism and advocacy, the essay carefully places WERD in the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement.;"WERD, Radio Activism, and the Black Freedom Movement" was an event held on April 12, 2017, at the Auburn Avenue Research Library (AARL) in Atlanta, Georgia. This discussion broadened the scope of the narrative to include radio's use by outsiders to advance their agendas, and contemporary usage of radio in civil and human rights struggles. Together, the project and the essay provide context into how radio is a precursor to modern technologies in providing social justice information to the masses.