HBCU Radio Preservation Project: Wendy Williams
Wendy Williams discusses her start in television, finding her love for public radio, her career with WCLK, and the value of HBCU radio for culture and community.
Turn up the volume and tune in to this week’s edition of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project! As a collaborator in the project, the Margaret Walker Center serves as a repository for the histories of HBCU stations and the community members who have been a part of them.
Meet Wendy Williams, the general manager of Clark Atlanta’s Jazz 91.9 WCLK. While Wendy hails from Pennsylvania, she traces her family roots to Georgia and Mississippi. She also recalls that she was one of few Black students at her predominantly white school, though she was still able to find a supportive environment. After graduating high school, she attended Bowling Green State University and studied radio, television, and film. Early in her career, she pursued television news, but eventually she started working at a country music station. She soon discovered she had a passion for radio as she learned about the industry and saw that HBCU stations play a vital role in highlighting Black voices and culture.
“When I landed in public radio, that’s when I started liking radio…What really appealed to me was the intrinsic value and nature of working in public radio and your ties and the engagement to the community.”
Wendy has worked at WCLK for over 30 years, during which time she has seen how technology, practices, and other aspects of the industry have evolved. Though she is proud of the $2 million that the station has been able to raise annually, she notes the continual challenges of fundraising and maintaining the station’s independence. She points out that the consequences of social and political changes can also impact funding and programming for public radio. Nonetheless, Wendy emphasizes the way that radio, especially HBCU radio, is vital for preserving history, disseminating information, forming community, and fostering culture.
There’s much more to hear, so click on the video below!
About the Project
Each Wednesday, tune into our YouTube channel, @mwalkercenter, to catch a new oral history from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project!
We are proud to partner with several organizations for the HBCU Radio Preservation Project, which is dedicated to honoring and preserving the rich history and cultural resource of HBCU radio.
Here’s some more info from their website:
Much of the material created at these stations is at risk of being lost, though they document the rich history and diversity of the Black experience through the Civil Rights era and beyond. The goals are to preserve the stations’ audio collections and to foster a community of sustainability for the stations and institutional archives on campus.
The project provides preservation training and workshops for campus stations, archivists and community members, recruiting HBCU graduates as interns and fellows.
Field archivists will collaborate with stations and campus archivists on collections assessments and follow-up field services such as inventories, reformatting, rehousing, and other preservation activities.
Oral historians will interview a range of community members to document the history of the stations. Training in gathering oral histories and using historical audio in content creation will also be offered. Other goals include launching an interactive website, a podcast series, and annual symposia.
