Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was – Documenting Radio on the Radio

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the mid-1990s, the Smithsonian Institution’s documentary series, Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was, aired on hundreds of public radio stations nationwide. The series explored approximately 70 years of the history and socio-cultural impact of African Americans in radio – an ambitious and unprecedented undertaking. No previous radio documentary series had attempted to examine, so expansively, this influential subset of the broadcast industry. Given this author’s service as one of the producers of this historic series, this paper will provide an insider’s perspective on Black Radio’s creation and significance, and it will suggest that the series may serve as an inspirational roadmap for future media production and preservation efforts.