by Renée Rosen
Leonard attempted to roll onto his side and shake off the tears collecting in his eyes. He hated being in the hospital. People died in hospitals. Lying there made him depressed and ornery. He was giving his nurses a hard time, snapping at them when they took his temperature, checked his blood pressure, changed his dressings. To pacify him one of his nurses turned on the radio. Moms Mabley was doing a comedy bit about the good ole days and she made Leonard laugh in spite of himself. It shot daggers to his ribs, but he couldn’t stop, and it was in the midst of laughing and crying that the light came on.
Phil stopped by the hospital later that day and Leonard couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Radio. Negro radio.”
“What?”
“You and me. We’re gonna buy a radio station for Negroes.”
“That’s your big idea? You sure those thugs didn’t give you brain damage? WGES and WOPA already have Negro programming.”
“I’m not talking about programming. I’m talking about a station—a whole station—devoted to Negro music, Negro comics, Negro programming all day long, every day of the week.”
• • •
Where Happy Folks Congregate. That was what the call letters, WHFC, stood for. That’ll be the first thing to go, thought Leonard as he and Phil walked through the station with the current owner, Richard Hoffman. It was an AM station over on the 3300 block of South Kedzie. It was just 1,000 watts strong, even weaker at night, bringing its power and reach down to just 250 watts. Hoffman had an FM station as well, WEHS—Elizabeth Hoffman station—named after his wife. They would change that, too.
Hoffman walked them from room to room as if it were a grand tour. “We do a variety of programming,” he said. “We have a Spanish hour, a Lithuanian hour, a Polish hour. Our Sunday morning gospel programming is especially popular.”
There was one main room with speakers mounted on the walls, a bunch of microphone and music stands and amplifiers pushed to the side. Part of a drum kit was stacked up, along with a broken accordion and a ukulele missing all its strings.
“What’s with all this equipment?” asked Leonard, leaning against a piano in the corner.
“Oh, we used to do live performances down here. We’d broadcast right from this room. But we haven’t done that in years.” He did a tsk tsk tsk. “Most of it’s junk now, I’m afraid, but that’s still a good piano. I’d be willing to throw it in along with the sale.”
“And the FM station, too?” asked Phil.
“And the FM station, too,” he said.
Hoffman wanted out. That was clear. Leonard told him they needed some time to think it over and they still had to get clearance and a license from the FCC. He and Phil spent the rest of the day over at Blatt’s crunching the numbers, plotting a lineup of deejays they thought they could lure over.
“I want this station to be for the Negroes,” said Leonard, slurping his coffee. “I want it to be the voice of the Negro.”
“Well, there’s your call letters right there,” said Phil. “VON—Voice of the Negro.”
“Bingo.” Leonard clapped his hands. “That’s it. WVON.”
“Don’t you think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves? Hoffman’s asking a million-five for the station,” said Phil. “That’s a lot of bread.”
“Hell, he’s ready to sell and I’m not offering more than a million. And he better throw in the FM station along with the piano.”
FIFTY-FOUR
• • •
“Green Onions”
RED
“Well, good morning, Chicago. Hello, hello, hello. This is your Inside Man, Red Dupree, and this may be April Fool’s Day but this here is no joke. Your Inside Man is coming to y’all live from the all-new Voice of the Negro on WVON AM 1450. We’re gonna kick off our very first broadcast ever with Ray Charles doing ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ So sit back, relax and enjoy the Voice of the Negro coming your way every day, all day.” Red dropped the needle on the turntable and eased back in his chair.
Back in March, one month before he went on the air with WVON, Phil had come to see him at the radio station in Gary where he was working, writing sponsor copy and maintaining the music library. But he wasn’t on the air and he missed that part of the business. Red had just finished up for the day and Phil took him to a bar around the corner with a dartboard and pinball machines in the back. There was nobody in there and they sat side by side at the bar. Phil wasn’t big on booze and it was a little early in the day for Red to start drinking so they both ordered soda pops. Leah had already told Red that the brothers had bought a radio station just for coloreds. They were going to broadcast twenty-four hours a day and they were having a hard time recruiting deejays.
“So what do you say?” Phil asked as he pulled his cigar from his mouth and set his hat down on the bar, his hair flat against his forehead. “How would you feel about coming with us and doing a show?”
Phil didn’t have to ask twice. That night Red celebrated with Leah and James, and a few weeks later the Inside Man was back on the air, taking requests and telling his inside stories. He’d been corresponding regularly with Chuck Berry while he was in prison and read portions of his letters over the air. Red’s listeners loved it. He told them how Jackie Wilson had gotten the nickname “Mr. Excitement” from a sixty-three-year-old fan. He invited his friends the Chiffons into the studio—all five of them cramped in the booth, hovered around two microphones. Red asked listeners to call in with questions. The switchboard could barely keep up. For such a small station, only 1,000 watts, word of the Inside Man and WVON caught on. It didn’t take long for other deejays to come on board, too. The Old Swingmaster, Al Benson, and Pervis Spann, the Blues Man, came over, along with Herb Kent, the Cool Gent, and others.
• • •
Less than a month after WVON went on the air it was Good Friday and Red was in the booth. He’d just started playing Booker T. and the M.G.s’ “Green Onions” when he got a call from his deejay friend Shelley the Playboy in Birmingham.
“There’s trouble brewing down here,” said Shelley. He gave Red a quick recap, telling him that Reverend King had been arrested for demonstrating in Birmingham. Shelley’s words took Red back to that Greyhound in Anniston. He could hear those Klansmen calling for his death and Birmingham was even worse than Anniston.
“This thing is ready to break wide open,” said Shelley. “Mark my words, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know Birmingham is never gonna be the same when this is done. I’m calling on my friends like you—you who have a voice on the radio—to let people know what’s going on.”
“I only have a thousand watts, but you know I’ll give you all I got,” said Red.
He hung up with Shelley Stewart and cut into Booker T. and the M.G.s. “This is Red Dupree, your Inside Man, with news coming out of Birmingham, Alabama. Now, y’all know that Birmingham is the most segregated city in this nation. That’s why Reverend King has taken the movement there with the goal of desegregating that city. Because if we can integrate Birmingham, we can desegregate the Deep South.
“And y’all know the movement is committed to peaceful demonstration. I’m talking nonviolent boycotts of the stores in town, nonviolent sit-ins at lunch counters that refuse to serve our brothers and sisters. We are committed to fighting with dignity, not our fists. That’s the strategy behind our struggle. And to think that our white brothers in Birmingham are accusing us of provoking their violent retaliations. This is how they justify responding to our peaceful protests not only by arresting hundreds of peaceful demonstrators but now they’ve also arrested Reverend King.”
Red looked up and saw Phil and Leonard on the other side of the glass booth, watching him. And smirking. Smirking! It infuriated Red. He finally played another record and when the On Air sign flashed off, Leonard and Phil came into the booth to have a word with him.
Red was furiou
s. They thought this was a joke. He chucked his headphones on the console and grabbed a cigarette. He’d been down this path before and had been fired from WGES for speaking his mind.
“I know, I know,” said Red, his hands raised. “I know what you’re gonna say. But let me just remind you that you’re calling this station the Voice of the Negro for a reason and I think the colored community has a right to know what’s really going on. Not every place is like Chicago—and this city is plenty segregated, too. Now if you want to fire me, then go right ahead, but if I stay on the air, don’t expect me to back down on what I’m saying.”
Phil and Leonard were laughing now.
“You think this is a joke? People are getting hurt down there. They’re getting thrown in jail and for no good reason.”
“Whoa, Red.” Phil came over and placed his hand on his shoulder. “We’re not laughing at you. I promise.”
“Look,” said Leonard, “Phil and I just came in here to tell you to keep going. We’re loving what you’re doing, motherfucker.”
FIFTY-FIVE
• • •
“We Shall Overcome”
LEEBA
Leeba and James were in the living room writing a song together. They were calling it “Windy City Blues.” James played Red’s old Stella while Leeba accompanied him on the piano. They didn’t have all the lyrics down yet, but the melody was coming together.
“Okay,” said Leeba, “let’s modulate right here, like this—” She demonstrated and James smiled and followed on guitar. Creating this song with James reminded her of how her father had once played violin with her. It also reminded her of all the songwriting she’d done with Aileen.
After a few more minutes, Leeba said, “Okay, time for you to do your schoolwork.” She gestured toward his books in the dining room.
He set his guitar down and went over to the table, but before he opened his math book James paused and said, “What was Red talking about on the radio today, Leah?”
“What in particular?”
“All that stuff about the movement and peaceful nonviolence. I don’t get why they don’t want anybody to fight back.”
“They are fighting back, just not with their fists. With their words, with their dignity. And believe it or not, that’s more powerful.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You will one day.”
“I wanna get it now.”
Leeba went to his side. “Come sit with me.” She led him to the davenport and put her arms around him, pulling him close. He was sixteen, soon to turn seventeen, already becoming a young man; and normally he’d fight her on that, but just then he let her hold him and even leaned into her, to be closer still. “There’s a lot of ugliness in this world, James. You know how you’re not always treated fairly just because of your race?”
He nodded.
“Well, it may be bad up here, but down South, especially in the Deep South, it’s even worse for Negroes.”
“But what has that got to do with what Red was talking about on the radio today about Birmingham?”
She rested her chin on his head. “People have had enough. They’re sick and tired of being treated unfairly so they’re starting to push back and take a stand for what’s right.”
“Is that what that Children’s Crusade is all about? I heard Red saying on the radio that they’re telling kids to leave school and go down there and march.”
“That’s right.” She stroked his hair. “Even here in Chicago you know you don’t always get the same opportunities as white kids. But a lot of people are trying to change all that. We want you to be ready for that change. That’s why Red and I are always on you about your schoolwork. We want you to go to college and fill your mind with all the knowledge you need so you can become whatever you want to be. We want you to have the same opportunities as any white child. That’s why people are down in Birmingham protesting and marching. They’re doing it for you. For your future.”
“Then why aren’t we down there with them?”
As soon as he said that it was like ice water on the face. So obvious and yet she’d missed it, until now. Yes, being a Freedom Rider had left her scarred, but in that instant Leeba knew what she had to do. She was going to Birmingham to march.
“I wanna go,” said James. “I wanna stand up for myself.”
Leeba wiped a tear running down her face. “You are so brave.” She kissed his forehead. Now she would have to explain why she couldn’t take him with her. “I’ll go down,” she said. “I’ll go down and fight for you. I promise.”
When Red got home that night, Leeba told him she was going to Birmingham. “I already checked the bus schedule. There’s a Greyhound leaving here tonight. I’ll be in Birmingham by noon tomorrow.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You need to stay up here—stay on the air and keep people informed. That’s just as important. Where else are they going to hear the truth? You stay here and do your part on the radio and I’ll go down to Birmingham and do mine.”
• • •
Leeba packed a change of clothes and not much else. Red took her to the bus station just as the Greyhound was boarding. It was a calm spring night in early May. She hugged Red fiercely and kissed him hard on the mouth, not giving a damn who saw them. She told him she loved him and before she started to cry she climbed on board that bus.
There weren’t many passengers and walking down the aisle reminded her of the day they boarded that Greyhound in Washington. Now as the bus was pulling away from the station she grew frightened and regretted not having Red with her. But as the miles rolled on, her courage and resolve came together.
They drove all night and the next day Leeba arrived in Birmingham. She checked into a motel and reported to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Reporters were clustered outside the church and cameramen were everywhere: on the street corners, up in the trees, on the rooftops. Even before she told members of the movement who she was and said that she’d been a Freedom Rider on that Greyhound in Anniston, they welcomed her, offering her lemonade and sandwiches. Some squeezed her hands, others hugged her and thanked her for coming. She wept at their graciousness.
Groups of people were gathered around transistor radios, listening to Shelley the Playboy on WJLD and Paul White on WENN, waiting for instructions. A woman named Thelma explained that they had to be careful about what was said on the air because of Bull Connor, the commissioner of public safety. He was monitoring them, so everything was said in code.
“Now listen here, baby,” said Shelley. “Some folk may not give y’all the time of day, but I sure will. And I do believe it’s two thirty.”
Thelma explained that Shelley meant they would start marching at two thirty.
“And don’t y’all forget to pack your toothbrushes today.”
“He’s warning us that there’s going to be arrests,” said Thelma. “The idea is bring your toothbrushes since you’re gonna be in jail.”
By two o’clock the church was filled to capacity. Children of all ages—some much younger than James—congregated there, and in an orderly fashion they began making their way over to Kelly Ingram Park. Someone handed Leeba a sign—“We Shall Overcome”—and she entered the park carrying it, splinters in her hands from gripping the wooden stick so tight. She joined the others in singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and other freedom songs. As a Jew, Leeba had never knelt in prayer, but that day she got down on her knees with the others and prayed, prayed with all she had, until they heard the signal.
“We got the weather report,” said Thelma. “Shelley just announced on the radio that it was ‘cold outside’ and in ninety-degree weather that means it’s time to head toward city hall.”
There were thousands of children marching along with Leeba and the other adults. In the heat of the South she got a chi
ll when she passed by Bull Connor and his army of policemen, their clubs poised, itching to strike, holding back their attack dogs. Some of the police were attaching fire hoses to the hydrants, getting ready to turn them on.
Leeba was standing so close to Bull Connor, she could see his pink sweaty face and the broken capillaries across his cheeks as he shouted at the crowd, “I’m banning all demonstrations. Break it up. Now.”
The marchers didn’t budge. Bull shouted louder. “I said break it up. Now!”
The crowd kept marching and Leeba heard Bull say to his men, “That’s it. Go on now, round ’em up and put ’em under arrest.”
The police moved in fast, colliding with the crowd, their clubs swinging as people began to scream and flee. Leeba took off while the cops grabbed men, women and children and stuffed them inside paddy wagons. She saw the police laughing, calling the demonstrators names as they shoved them into the wagons, like it was a game to them.
Leeba made it safely back to her motel room that day and the first thing she did was turn on the TV and telephone Red. She was still panting while she told him everything. “It’s all over the TV stations down here.”