Tag Archives: Gary Byrd

Airwave Dijelis (Griots): Asante Sana, Bob Law #BobLaw #Nighttalk #NighttalkwithBobLaw

Posted on by toddpanther

From my 2001 doctoral dissertation. Any mistakes–grammatical or ideological–are mine, not the University of Maryland’s.

“He stood at the mic like a lighthouse, unblinking in the storm. A voice for the people, a spine for the truth. Fearless in witness, relentless in love for his community. An icon — not because he sought it, but because he earned it.”

– New York City radio broadcaster Rennie Bishop, from an email upon hearing about Law’s transition into the Realm of the Ancestors

Bob Law was a New York City civil rights activist in the early 1970s. In the previous decade, he had worked with the radical Brooklyn branch of the Congress for Racial Equality,  a national civil rights organization. He also worked in the 1960s with the Northern Student Movement and as an East Coast organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He had attended Pratt  Institute, a New York City arts college. Law studied graphic design and communications arts.  Law said one of his greatest influences in the 1960s  was  Malcolm X, whom he called “…the great educator.  The great teacher.  He  raised  questions about  the things we were doing in the  movement. He raised questions about street life. And  he was  a primary influence in the  Lives  of a great many  people, particularly the group of young people that  I was  a part  of.” 

Law led a group called IMPAC–the Independent  Movement for Political Action.  Law appeared on Bernie McCain’s WWRL-AM Sunday afternoon show. “Tell It Like  It Is.” to talk about his organization’s campaign against the use of the drug  Ritalin,  a drug that counteracts hyperactivity,  in  New  York City’s public schools.  Law and other activists believed the drug was disproportionately being used on  Black schoolchildren.  Law said  McCain was a pioneer of “activist radio,” where a host would actually campaign–and get his listeners organized–against an injustice. When McCain became program director at  KDIA-AM in Oakland, California, Law became the station’s public affairs director and host of a show called “Black Dialogue.” 

In 1981, the same year WLIB began Black news-talk programming, “Night Talk” premiered on the National Black Network, originating on WWRL-AM. Its host was Law.  (The all-night slot had been held by Law’s friend Gary Byrd, who soon moved down the dial to rival WLIB; more on his story here.) The 1960s civil rights activist, who had been a guest on Bernie McCain’s WWRL-AM  Sunday afternoon talk show,   “Tell  It  Like  It  Is,”  in the 1970s, had worked his way up the WWRL ladder to become the station’s program director.  “Night Talk” with Bob Law was the first national Black radio talk show.  It ran weeknights, from midnight to 5 a.m.,  Monday through  Friday mornings. It was a national forum for Black issues in the news and Black politics. One scholar said  it “quickly became the  most popular Black talk radio show in the country.”

Law said the value of the national show was that  Blacks struggling for social justice in one area “learn that their situation is not isolated.  And  [they]  are  even encouraged by [other] people  who  struggle against that  oppression.”  A seasoned organizer from the  1960s, Law  used the forum  not just to inform, but also to prepare his  listeners  to spring into action.   Early in its history,  civil rights leader  Jesse Jackson  Sr. was  Law’s  “Night  Talk”   Tuesday co-host, which Jackson used his visibility to prepare for his  1984  Presidential campaign. Law  invited  on  a regular basis  activists and  scholars,  like John  Henrik Clarke and Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan, to discuss their specialties.

The wee-hours host used his late-night pulpit to run many campaigns and crusades. When I began listening to the show in   1987,  a major focus was fundraising for the New York chapter of the Black United Fund, a self-help philanthropy group.  Named New York Coordinator for  1995’s Million  Man  March, “Night Talk” pushed hard for a large national turnout. In his book,  Law lists some  of “Night Talk'” s crusades, with  special  emphasis on one campaign in particular:

And there are many examples of NIGHTTALK’s influence on a national level: We helped raise  $100,000  for a  Kansas City teenager,  we financed a summer softball league for children on behalf of  [Law’s]  Respect  Yourself Youth  Foundation, and  we helped  [in  1982]  to save the Lorraine Motel,  the  site of Martin  Luther King· s assassination [from an auction] …[Local businessmen]  wanted to convert the hotel into a Martin  Luther King museum, which  I agreed  would  be much  more fitting  than the stone marker and plastic flowers that had been placed at the  door  of Dr.  King’s room.  The  plan was  to prevent the  auction  by paying off the debt owed by the motel. and then raise the money to build the Martin Luther King Museum.

I agreed  to make  the appeal  and organize various  fundraising events in local communities  around   the  country,  in  conjunction  with   my  on-air   activity.  I wanted the museum to make one adjustment [,]  however.  I wanted the museum to be dedicated to the entire   Civil   Rights   Movement,  with  Dr.  King   as  its centerpiece. The group agreed, and we launched a national radio campaign on NIGHTIALK…  The   NIGHTIALK   audience also responded by calling the Judge who was to rule  on the auction, to assure him that they were donating to the memorial fund  and  that  the  money  was indeed  on the way.  On the strength of those phone calls and the renewed and expanded enthusiasm for the  project, the Judge  delayed  the auction, giving  the Memorial Foundation a few more days to receive  contributions from  its new supporters throughout the country.

We were successful!    The    Martin    Luther   King    Memphis Memorial Foundation  was  able  to  buy  the  motel  and  the  time  they  needed   to  raise  the additional funds  to  build  the  excellent museum of the  Civil  Rights  Movement that currently  exists at  the  site  of the  old  Lorraine  Motel.  Strangely  enough. there  is  no  mention   of the  NIGHTTALK campaign  in  any  of the  museum· s literature, nor was a promised plaque  installed in the museum’s entrance to acknowledge  the  donations of African   Americans around the  country.  These donations did in fact make  the Civil  Rights  Museum possible.

In 1989, Law’s friend and former WWRL co-worker, now calling himself Imhotep Gary Byrd, was on a roll so he decided to talk about a role. During a week of broadcasting his “GBE” (“Global Black Experience”) self-styled call-in radio magazine live from the Apollo Theater before that mid-morning, remote slot became his permanently, he decided to pay tribute to his peers in Black-oriented media.  From Monday through Thursday that week of late  August, the ”GBE” hosted a tribute  to New York City’s “Pioneers in Broadcasting.” With a studio audience, he honored the late Alma John, whose show on WWRL-AM was a staple in the 1960s and whose community work in the New York area was still remembered. Byrd also honored New York radio legend Hal Jackson,   who was celebrating his 50th year in broadcasting.  In addition, Byrd honored two of his peers: WABC-TV’s Gil Noble, the producer and host of the award-winning Black public affairs television program “Like It Is,” and Bob Law. (More on Noble and his show here.)

Noble, onstage at the Apollo, talked to Byrd about his career and professional philosophy (he started his career in the 1960s as a WLIB newscaster). He recalled how he learned from Pan-Africanist Queen Mother Moore that, as a displaced African in America, he didn’t even know his true  [African] name. She “made me understand the severity of my condition … I didn’t even know my name.”  That perspective, according to Noble, helped him to “ward off the intoxication” of becoming successful in a white-dominated industry. He said that he always remembers it was the Civil Rights Movement, particularly the 1967 Black insurrections in Newark and elsewhere, that got him his job at WABC-TV “..and  that’s why I’ve spent my career trying to give back.”

“Like It Is,” he explained, was important for Blacks and whites because “White people need to learn the truth about themselves, too.” The predominantly Black audience laughed and applauded. He blamed America’s Eurocentric educational systems as the reason why Blacks who enter journalism all too often consider themselves journalists first and  African-Americans second.  He thanked Byrd for honoring him, noting that he was glad Byrd had such a public forum to be praised by callers and members of the studio audience, the latter of whom began moving to microphones near the Apollo stage to join the conversation.  A Black woman identifying herself as 83-year-old  Beatrice Johnson from  Queens said she never missed “Like It Is” when it was broadcast on early Sunday afternoons. “I don’t miss it.  That’s like church to me,” she said. One Black man asked Noble why he didn’t try to go after the anchor chair.  “I am constantly reminded of the condition of our people,” responded Noble. “And that it is severe and grave.  And that is my focus. And  I don’t believe  I can make a [similar]  contribution anchoring the news as [I do with]  ‘Like It Is,” since he said it was the only program on New York television controlled and conceptualized by people of African descent. “I think  it is important for  ‘Like  It Is’  to  stay  alive  because   it  allows   people  to  see  the  world from the eyes of the majority of the people in the world instead of the minority.”

The  next  day  on  the “GBE,”  Law was  honored on the Apollo stage for  his  work  on WWRL and on “Night Talk.” He talked to Byrd about his activist history in  New York City prior to becoming a broadcaster–particularly the  influence Malcolm had  on him. He mentioned that Hal Jackson, whom Byrd had honored earlier that week, was the host of “Community Forum” on WLIB.  where Law,  as a young activist, would appear as a guest in the late 1960s. He said that the future of radio,  especially AM radio, was talk and information, and that format was  “…absolutely  necessary in  the  African-American community,” since  radio  “is  the  only  thing  on in the  Black  community 24 hours  a day.”  A  65-year-old Black woman from the studio audience confirmed this. saying that she had gotten a thorough education from her “daytime man” Byrd and her nighttime “husband” Law.  The audience applauded and cheered, and both broadcasters quietly and humbly thanked her for her statement.

The three case studies of this chapter–programming on WABC-TV” s “Like  It Is,” WWRL-AM and  WLIB-AM–are textbook examples of the multiple roles of Black media.   The three forums have attempted to present an  African-centered worldview using mass media.  The hosts of these programs discussed here argue that their shows are antidotes to white mainstream media programming,  which, due to its disproportionate control by whites,  present a white view of the world as mainstream.  These forums allow  African-Americans in the New  York tri-state area and, in the case of WWRL”s  “Night  Talk” nationally, to see and hear themselves from the varied historical and cultural perspectives of  Africans and   African- Americans.  They also allow a counter-narrative from the culturally white and politically right-wing views of white mainstream talk radio in  New   York   City. Because the distinct roles they play are well within the concept of Black media function. The mass communication products of Noble, Law and Byrd exemplify the Two-Pronged Black  Critique of White  Media  Hegemony:  l) the critique of white media supremacy and 2) the Black counter-narrative.

Noble,  Law and Byrd share common professional and personal characteristics. All are tall,  charismatic men who are more than  50  years old.  The Civil Rights and Black Power movements forged all three ideologically, but as those movements developed in the    North–specifically in New York City, the headquarters of the movements of Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. They did not formally study journalism,  although Law trained in communications at Pratt Institute,  an arts college.  All started their careers in  Black radio during turbulent years in  American society.  The three work as communicators who say they attempt to use their craft for the improvement of African-Americans. All three are artists. Noble,  a piano player,  led the Gil  Noble  Trio, a jazz band, in the  1950s;  Byrd is a performance poet, songwriter and entertainer; Law is a graphics artist.

There are some slight differences.  Law  is  the only  one  of the  trio  with  a college  degree.  Noble was the only of the three not known to have been an athlete as a youth, unlike Byrd (football) and Law (baseball).  Noble is the only one of the three working in white mainstream media.  Law is the only one with a background in community organizing.

All three broadcasting forums are strongly focused from a Black worldview. For more than 15 years, the “Like It Is” title sequence has started with drums and a visual collage of the  African-American experience, ranging from drawings of Africans being enslaved through pictures of the abolitionist period and the  Civil Rights  Movement to “Like It Is” interview clips from the  1970s to,  finally,  a still picture of a baby being born.    After the collage,   a red,  black and green flag–the universally accepted symbol of  Black Nationalism–is created onscreen,  with the title of the show appearing in front of the flag shortly afterward. Law’s radio  show started   with  an  announcer saying   “Night  Talk” was “for  people   who  live  in  the Black   community   and   whose    actions   affect   the   Black   community.”  That description could easily apply to all three programs.

The shows sound different.  Noble’s on-air demeanor,  if not his line of questioning,  is very calm and “objective;” he does not blatantly express his opinion on the air.  Law and  Byrd, on the other hand, have been open  advocates  on-air whose  opinions on  most  topics  are  clearly  known.  Unlike  Law and  Byrd.  Noble does  not use music during the show;  the show’s transitions to commercials and closing credits are  done  in silence. Noble is  “Like  It Is”s’  only interviewer,  while Law and Byrd  took calls  from their audiences. Noble’s show  is a weekly  hour;  the others  had at least  16 hours  of radio  time to fill on the radio every  week.

All three  seem to be addressing the same audience–one seeking the Black media imperative as preferred programming. In my view,  the audience  Law, Byrd  and Noble seem to target is composed of serious-minded African-American adults who want to l) learn about   African-American politics, history and culture and   2)   do something to improve the condition of African-Americans from a left-of-center, Nationalist-oriented point of view.  The hosts seek to increase understanding of the African-American experience by creating programs that inspire African-Americans to become race-conscious citizens. By doing this,   from my perspective, they serve the movements that created them and push a new generation to be exposed and, hopefully, become actively involved in social justice struggles.

The fact that Law, Byrd and Noble are part of a generation of  Blacks influenced by the Civil  Rights and Black Power movements does not make them at all unusual;  millions of African-Americans were also shaped by the period between 1960  and  1975.  What makes the story of these  three men  and  their forums worthy of scholarly study is  how,  as media professionals,  they consciously chose to make the mass media their own instead of being made by the mass media.  As Black men who see their history,  politics  and culture as central to their identity as  American citizens and human beings,  they decided to make media from that experience during virtually the same time period–the late  1960s; they chose to make media that matched their beliefs,  thoughts and opinions. They chose to use the media to present and discuss the  African and  African-American experiences from the often-controversial perspectives of their activist peers, not from the “objective” perspective taught in journalism school to Black and white journalists alike.  In so doing,  they became both proponents of the Black media imperative and ideological heirs– ”living mediums” standing on electronic stepladders–of the movements they have championed.

PRESS RELEASE: He Was A Black Power Icon On “Sesame Street.” Then He Was Evicted. A New, Free Online Novel On Medium.com Tells The Full Story Of America’s First Black Muppet.

Posted on by toddpanther
Forgotten Black-Power-TV icon Roosevelt Franklin, teaching his fellow inner-city Muppets on PBS’ “Sesame Street,” circa early 1970s

February 1, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Todd Steven Burroughs (toddpanther@gmail.com/@ToddStevenBurr1)

NEW, FREE ONLINE NOVEL ON MEDIUM.COM TELLS THE STORY OF HOW AMERICA’S FIRST BLACK MUPPET, A SYMBOL OF THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT, WAS EVICTED FROM “SESAME STREET”

A PEOPLE’S NOVEL: At The Dark End of Sesame Street: The Autobiography of Roosevelt Franklin
(OR
Coup Tube: The Prose Ballad of Roosevelt Franklin)

Roosevelt Franklin, one of the first breakout stars of Sesame Street, has been called “The Black Elmo” but he’s really a Black Power pioneer. It’s why author Todd Steven Burroughs decided to take the plunge and further fictionalize the life of a network TV puppet.

“The more I read about Roosevelt, the more I realize that a puppet actually went through the Black Power experience,” said Burroughs, who, at 56, was part of the first generation of American toddlers to watch the then-brand-new “Sesame Street” on PBS. So it was clear to him that Roosevelt’s “life” had to be explored in-depth.

“Originally I was going to write an article, but that had been done to death already,” said Burroughs, a freelance writer and public historian. “I was going to make it a little different by doing one of those long magazine pieces that would have allowed Roosevelt his first-person segment—a mini-platform to tell his own story—and that idea expanded into this attempt at fan fiction.”

Roosevelt Franklin was created by Matt Robinson, the show’s first “Gordon” (pictured, along with Loretta Long, still the show’s “Susan” in 2024). Decades before “Elmo’s World,” he was the first character to get his own “Sesame Street” segment named after him, “Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School,” a series of skits that had Franklin work as a student teacher at a vibrant, noisy, inner-city school.

Another pioneering power-move: he was the first Sesame Street character to get an album. It was released in 1971 and re-released in 1974.

A mainstay from 1970, the year after Sesame Street began, to 1975, he was even one of the show’s first toys.

 So what happened?

“Roosevelt was a victim, ultimately, of middle-class Black respectability politics,” said Burroughs. “Once I saw his arc and how it intersected, and even mirrored, the Black Power Movement and the problems and paradoxes of racial integration and cultural nationalism, I knew I had to do something a little different, to tell the story I began to see in my own mind—basically write the last Black Power memoir about someone who, pun intended,  wasn’t going to be The Man’s puppet.”

Published in full and for free on Medium.com, At The Dark End of Sesame Street fills in significant gaps in Roosevelt’s story, giving him friends and mentors—some of whom are very well-known in New York’s Black communities in the early 1970s—and, by doing that, tells fun and interesting tales about television, music, and finding a sense of purpose. Along the way, it exposes the internal tensions that are inevitable when a young Black man tries to balance the demands of white liberalism and Black radicalism during the Black Power era.

“The weirdest part for me was writing a story that mentioned both pioneering New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm and Big Bird,” said Burroughs, a lifetime student of New York’s Black public affairs television programming and Black radio history. “TV has always created strange bedfellows, and this novel is no different.”

############

Roosevelt and the class, keeping the beat

DISCLAIMER: A PEOPLE’S NOVEL: At The Dark End of Sesame Street: The Autobiography of Roosevelt Franklin (OR Coup Tube: The Prose Ballad of Roosevelt Franklin) is a nonprofit work of fanfiction written and posted for free online consumption, and hopefully enjoyment, under Fair Use. Roosevelt Franklin is a fantasy puppet character created by a real Black man, Matt Robinson, for use by the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), now known as the Sesame Workshop. Sesame Street is a creation of the Children’s Television Workshop for the Public Broadcasting Service and HBO and is trademarked by Sesame Workshop. The Muppets were created by Jim Henson and the CTW. All Sesame Street Muppet characters are trademarked and copyrighted by the Sesame Workshop. All images, names and likenesses of Sesame Street characters, puppets and PBS actors used in this promotional material and in the novel are done under Fair Use. No copyright nor trademark infringement is intended.

An Origin Story of Gary Byrd, From “Disc Journalist” to “World African Griot”

Posted on by toddpanther

Gary Byrd turns 70 tomorrow. I thought this was as good an excuse as any to pull this out of my 2001 doctoral dissertation–an attempt to define Black (American) media ideology–to say an early “Happy Birthday.” Any mistakes are mine, and I welcome corrections from Byrd and all others. Happy Birthday, Brother Byrd! 

A Byrd Flies In Buffalo

A major portion of the story of Black media can be told through the life and career of Gary Byrd.  The radio veteran, who in the year 2000 was in his early 50s, is considered one of the links between the pioneer Black broadcasters and the current generation. Byrd’s 30-year career in broadcasting in New York City and Buffalo displays all facets of how Black media function.

Byrd began his radio career as a teenager in Buffalo, N.Y. Hearing Byrd’s powerful, charismatic speaking voice in a 1965 high school play, a part-time disk jockey for WUFO asked the fifteen-year-old if he had thought about a radio career. Byrd joined WUFO and, by the time he was 17, set his sights on WWRL. He was initially offered a job, but his grandmother made him turn it down until he finished high school. After a brief period at WYSL, located in upstate New York, Byrd joined WWRL in 1969 at the age of 19. His tenure there gave him the freedom to experiment that would allow the young disk jockey and poet to grow spiritually, intellectually and journalistically on the air.

“The Gary Byrd Experience”

In 1970, Byrd was given WWRL’s all-night spot. “It was late at night at the station … [the  management said,] ‘Do what you can to keep the people up.’ They left me alone.” Being left alone to test ideas on the air during a time of experimentation in FM radio, the Black Power Movement and the Black Arts Movement, Byrd developed “The Gary Byrd Experience,” a blended and layered mix of music, interviews, radio news footage and his own Gil Scott-Heron-like poetry.  (This format was similar to the one Del Shields used on his “Total Black Experience in Sound” show on WLIB-FM–a station that would, in 1972, be renamed WBLS-FM–but Byrd identifies his influences then as social comedian Dick Gregory and message-oriented soul music of the late 1960s. The program’s name is Byrd’s take on rock legend Jimi Hendrix’s band, “The Jimi Hendrix Experience.”) One of the poems Byrd created that he used on the air in the early 1970s  was “Every Brother Ain’t a Brother,” his 1969 commentary on the social forces surrounding the Black Power movement. He said he wrote the poem because “at that time there were some interesting contradictions in the Black community.”

It‘s time for us to face the truth and level with each other
It‘s time for us to face the fact that every brother ain‘t a brother.
There are some who‘ll say to the world at large
I’m no color. I’m just a man.”
And some say to the folks uptown that Black Power is not their plan.
But through it all we fool ourselves and fool one another
By failing to face the simple fact that every brother ain’t a brother.
Now there is a kind of brother who shoots a brother and thinks that makes him bad
There‘s a kind of brother who says  he’s Black because now it’s just a fad
We‘re at the point in the  world today for self-evaluation
Just to find out where  we really are in this racially tom-up nation
And one of the first things we must do is stop kidding one another
And get on the case of realism that every brother ain‘t a brother.
Now I said that every brother ain’t a brother
And I know you know that’s true.
But look in the mirror carefully
‘Cause that brother might be you.

Byrd began to redefine the role of disc jockey, calling himself a “disc journalist.”

His use of issues and music brought him attention from a fan of his radio show, musician Stevie Wonder, who invited him to write the lyrics to two songs, “Village Ghetto Land” and “Black Man” on Wonder’s double-album classic “Songs In The Key of Life.”  In addition, Byrd recorded his own albums of poetry. With Bob Law, who became WWRL’s program director in the 1970s, Byrd attempted to bring the concept of predominately white “progressive FM” format to AM radio, but in a way tailored specifically to the needs of New York’s Black community. In 1984, Byrd would make a career move that would expand his reach and influence, and ultimately find a sphere of thought that he could claim as his own and share with his audience.

A Byrd Takes Flight As A New Experience Begins

By 1984, three years after Law’s “Night Talk,” a nationally syndicated Black talk radio program, debuted on WWRL, new talkers were on the WLIB airwaves. Mark Riley became WLIB’s mid-morning host, after the morning newscast. Gary Byrd became the early-to-late afternoon host on the daytime AM radio station. “The Gary Byrd Experience” had evolved from Black music to Black talk, and Byrd began to mix music to set the mood for his interviews and discussions. WLIB had a broadcaster in Byrd who attempted to meld the spiritual (music) with the social-political (talk) aspects of the African-American experience.

‘The Gary Byrd Experience” on WLIB, in Byrd’s mind a radio magazine, established Black rituals of sound. Each of the opening segments had its own particular sound, blending jazz with gospel, with Byrd’s voice opening and closing the show over the music. Unlike Riley’s show, which was call-in talk interrupted by music cues, Byrd, with music, rhyme and tone, tried to create a cultural atmosphere with his predominately Black audience. His “question of the day” for the audience, the focus of the leading segment of his program, was a more philosophical one than poised on the more news-oriented Riley’s show. When I began listening to him in 1987, Byrd referred to himself a “New Age Griot,” the latter French term referring to a name given to male West African praise singers who sing the history of a particular person, family or community.

A New Name, A New “GBE,” A New Site

While living and working in New York City in the 1970s and early 1980s, Byrd, who read on his own about Africa, began to be exposed to African-centered scholars such as John Henrik Clarke and Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan (known as “Dr. Ben”), who often delivered public lectures to cultural Nationalist groups and others. Jochannan, an Egyptologist, taught that the ancient Egyptians who shaped human civilization were Black-skinned Africans. Byrd told Gil Noble during a 1999 WABC-TV “Like It Is” interview that he was prepared “to sit at Dr. Ben’s  feet” when he heard a tape of a speech of Dr. Ben’s. In the mid-l980s, Byrd went to Egypt, where he was told by a priest to go to a certain place along the Nile River and perform a ritual to gain a spiritual  experience. That ritual, he recalls, gave him the inspiration to give himself a name that “would give me something to aspire to every day of my life, a new place to step to.” He adopted the name Imhotep, the legendary Egyptian first multi-genius.

Byrd  began using his new name publicly around 1990. It was shortly after he did a special week of programming from the Apollo Theatre honoring African-centered scholars such as Clarke and ben-Jochannan. As a result of the  success of those  broadcasts, Byrd was given the mid-morning slot, live from the Apollo. With this move in place, Byrd subsequently announced that his name was now Imhotep Gary Byrd and that he was re-christening his show the “Global Black  Experience.” The broadcaster, dropping the “New Age” from his self-description, had now decided to become the African-American broadcast equivalent of an African griot–a living medium for African-Americans, with the mission to “make African people feel good about themselves, and to make the world feel good about African people.”

The “New GBE: Africentricity,” as he called it, was done on the Apollo stage, a center of Black American culture. Still essentially call-in talk radio, it was done with a live studio audience, who came in from the street to see the show. Guests were onstage talking with Byrd–wearing  dreadlocks and dressed in flowing African robes–while the members of the studio audience lined up to ask questions or to win prizes in a Black history quiz question Byrd would ask on-air.

The show became politically and culturally stronger in tone-as strong to the Black Cultural Nationalist left as white mainstream talk show radio hosts Bob Grant and Rush Limbaugh of WABC-AM were  to the white right  in the 1980s and 1990s. The new “rituals of sound” were more African and less African-American. The “new” GBE began with a recorded call to “Speak, Drums!  Tell the real story.” After the theme, Byrd would read aloud the Nguzo Saba–the seven principles of Kawaida theory developed by Black Cultural Nationalist Maulana Karenga and popularized by the Karenga-inspired African-American holiday, Kwanzaa–at the start of every show. These principles include calls to African unity, self-determination and purpose. Then Byrd would read the headlines from The  Daily Challenge, the city’s only Black daily newspaper. On “Black Press Thursday,” the day most of the city’s weekly Black newspapers would be on the newsstands. He read headlines from all of the city’s Black press. Byrd took advantage of the use of a well-known stage and culturally-eager studio audience to honor people who had made significant contributions to African and African-American life.

The significance of the “New GBE,” from a cultural standpoint, cannot be overemphasized. Byrd, by 1990 a cultural hero of sorts and opinion leader in New York’s cultural Nationalist and activist  communities, was now broadcasting an African-centered show from the Apollo Theatre, a legendary Harlem landmark on 125th Street–the same street used by many of the streetcorner orators, including Malcolm X. These ancestors now had descendants with new, more sophisticated stepladders and megaphones. The unedited voices of these “children” could now be heard around the nation’s No. 1 local media market–the New York tri-state area–in cars, homes, or on Walkmans while jogging. Black senior citizens and others who learned about Black history and culture from Byrd and his guests could now drop by to see them in person and ask questions. Teachers set up class field trips, as I helped to do in 1992 for journalism and broadcasting high school students attending the Seton Hall University Upward Bound program. “The New Negro Movement” of the 1930s had become a 1990s African-centered renaissance, live, on-air. The “New GBE” allowed Blacks to participate in a collective African-centered media experience, using the most powerful medium in Black communities, the radio.