Publication Type: Individual Paper
Abstract: This study focuses on Vernon Winslow, the New Orleans disk jockey who in 1949 changed the way air personalities presented themselves on air. White radio station owners and managers in New Orleans then refused to hire blacks for on-air slots. Nevertheless, Winslow wanted to work in radio. He mailed to local radio stations copies of scripts he wrote. The scripts were so good that he was invited to undergo an interview, but the station owner refused to hire a black man to go on air. Instead the owner hired Winslow to teach white broadcasters how to impersonate the hip ness of the voice of a black man. Winslow called the character Poppa Stoppa, and a white man assumed the role.
This study argues that radio station owners and managers, struggling to gain listeners, could no longer overlook the exceptional talent of black men, many of whom were working at black newspapers. Winslow, a smooth-voiced art teacher at Dillard University, was one of them. Local urban radio would never be the same after broadcasters experienced black cultural and sub-cultural expressions.
When, in 1950, a local beer brewery hired Winslow in the public relations department, he got his chance to go on air. He created a new character which he named Dr. Daddy-O, and the emergence set the standard for black radio DJs that would follow.


Office address:
Bala Baptiste, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Communications
Miles College
5500 Myron Massey Blvd.
Birmingham (Fairfield), AL 35064
205-929-1485
bbaptiste@miles.edu

Home address:
75 Addie Lane
Pell City, AL 35128
205-612-5082, cell
bbaptiste@miles.edu
bbaptiste000@centurytel.net