Mainstream Radio Excludes Black Voices; Segregated Airwaves Through 1950s

Through the 1950s, mainstream radio stations across the South refuse to play records by Black artists on stations with white audiences. In Northern cities, Black artists are confined to small independent labels while white artists cover their songs on major labels for mainstream radio play. National broadcast networks employ virtually no Black talent except in stereotyped roles. Black newscasters, commentators, and journalists are excluded from television journalism as it emerges in the 1950s. The structural exclusion of Black voices from broadcast media persists until the late 1960s FCC actions on equal employment.