The Shining Brief Moment Of Black Radio News

pacificanetwork |  As the keynote speaker at the Grassroots Radio Conference held in early October in Rochester, NY, Glen explained how not all preachers in the 60’s invited Dr. Martin Luther King to come to their town, for they preferred to handle relations with the dominating white system on their own.  According to Ford, The Civil Rights Movement hadn’t reached towns like Augusta except through the media.

Believing that Black clergy of Augusta were “collaborating with the white power structure,” instead of building a community of empowerment for black people, Ford threw the list of names in the trash and proceeded to search for people who would represent what he described as, “the real Augusta.”  For him, the real Augusta was made of people who were not being served by the system. So, Ford looked for leaders of the community who he thought would join him in disrupting that system.  Such as “a rather loud black woman whom all the other tenants respected” to address on housing and poverty; or “that brother who jumps up every time the police beat down another brother” to address criminal justice.

With these new allies, Ford made his own list of “experts,” and watched them grow swiftly in their roles as public commentators.  He called them his committee of 10.  Because they were already natural leaders in their community, they collectively set out to awaken everyday people to their own power.

Under Ford’s leadership, that committee of 10 called for a boycott of the downtown businesses of Augusta to protest their refusal to employ black workers.  The campaign was called “Don’t Shop Where You Can’t Work.” This was Augusta Georgia’s first mass movement. 

The project was promoted on the radio to community enthusiasm and support. On the eve of the boycott, the minister with the largest congregation held an over-flow event at his church. Cheers erupted from the crowd when it was announced that James Brown himself was coming to town to donate $600 of bail money if anyone was arrested during the boycott.  

But James Brown’s radio station relied on advertising from downtown merchants, and when Ford showed up for his broadcast featuring the boycott, he found a note taped to the microphone, saying “There will be no coverage of the downtown merchant’s boycott on this radio station.” Ford was terminated from his job after the verbal altercation that followed with James Brown that almost came to blows.  

Without the radio behind the boycott, the boycott in Augusta collapsed. However, Ford’s organizing through radio resulted in on-going local organizing in Augusta and launched Ford’s distinguished journalism and organizing career.