Recordings From HBCU Radio Stations Focus Of Preservation Project.

An effort is in motion to preserve recordings of programs that emanated from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) radio stations over the past decades, from the days of reel-to-reel recorders through today’s digital audio technology.

According to a report from the University of North Carolina-owned news/talk WUNC-FM (91.5), many of the recordings are at risk of being lost due to deterioration, outdated formats or a lack of storage space. Together, they tell a sweeping story of the Black experience, featuring interviews with Civil Rights luminaries like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and authors such as Alice Walker.

“A lot of times they get thrown out,” says Dr. Jocelyn Robinson, Founding Director of the Ohio-based HBCU Radio Preservation Project and Archives Director at Miami Valley Public Media news “91.3 WYSO” Dayton, a project partner. Robinson says her goal is to help HBCU radio stations facilitate the preservation of archival cassette tapes, reels, 8-tracks, and other recordings.

“In most cases, there was no relationship between the radio station and the institutional archives at the library, so that material wasn’t being transferred over to the library,” Robinson explains. “As those formats became obsolete, they were no longer able to be played back. If you can’t play something back, you’re not keeping it because you need that space for other things.”

According to the report, WSHA at Shaw University in Raleigh was the first HBCU-owned radio station when it went on the air in 1963. Today, 29 of the 104 HBCUs in the U.S. have stations with mainly jazz, R&B and public affairs formats. Seven are in North Carolina.

Robinson secured a $15,000 grant from the National Recording Preservation Foundation in 2019, with the funds used to survey HBCU stations’ audio files. Donors eventually became interested enough to raise some $350,000. That money provided for a pilot program that identified, sorted and digitized audio recordings at four HBCU radio stations.

The pilot program’s success resulted in a four-year, $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. That money has expanded the project to assist all HBCU radio stations in preserving audio content.

“The intention had always been for the project to address all stations,” Robinson said. “And not only that but to create a model that could be used by any radio station anywhere, particularly tribal stations and rural stations and community-based stations that may not have the resources to have an archivist to work with their materials.”

Robinson says the ongoing support for HBCU radio stations will include additional audio preservation training, grants to attend preservation conferences and other resources.