By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
The HBCU Radio Preservation Project is a groundbreaking initiative dedicated to honoring and preserving the history and culture of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) radio.
This multi-year endeavor is working to safeguard audio archives, train the next generation of preservationists, and document the indispensable role HBCU radio has played in shaping the Black experience through music, news, public affairs programming, and community storytelling.
Radio stations at HBCUs have been forums for community voices for decades. Currently, 29 of the 104 HBCUs in the U.S. operate radio stations, many of which have been on air for more than 50 years. These stations have served as platforms for student training, community engagement, and the amplification of civil rights and social justice movements. However, much of their recorded material—from reel-to-reel tapes to cassettes and early digital formats—is deteriorating, and in danger of being lost forever.
The HBCU Radio Preservation Project began with a 2019 survey assessing the preservation practices of these radio stations. From there, a pilot project was launched in collaboration with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), and thanks to a $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the initiative has now entered its full implementation phase. Over the next four years, the project aims to serve all 29 HBCU radio stations, in partnership with organizations like WYSO, NEDCC, the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.
The project has three major components: training and education, preservation, and public history praxis. In terms of training, preservation workshops and internships are being offered to campus stations, archivists, and students—especially HBCU graduates—infusing the preservation field with new energy and talent. For preservation, field archivists are conducting collections assessments and providing services like reformatting, digitization, and proper rehousing of archival materials. And in public history praxis, oral historians are interviewing former radio staff, alumni, and listeners, while also providing training on collecting oral histories and using them in content creation. A podcast series, an interactive website, and annual symposia are also part of the public engagement strategy.
One of the most recent milestones in the project was the ceremonial return of nearly 400 hours of historic radio broadcasts to North Carolina Central University (NCCU). These rare recordings, which were preserved through the efforts of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project in partnership with the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission and the HBCU Digital Library Trust, include original programming from WNCU 90.7 FM.
The event took place at the James E. Shepard Memorial Library and marked a major step in making this cultural archive accessible to students, scholars, and the wider public.
General Manager of WNCU, Lackisha Sykes-Freeman, expressed the significance of this achievement, saying: “We were able to encapsulate some of that audio from off of cassettes and minidiscs, which we currently didn't have access or the ability to digitize and so to have this opportunity for the funding and the resources that went behind digitizing all these files to now have archived here at North Carolina Central University in our archives as a collection is absolutely amazing.”
The significance of this work was also emphasized by Andre' Vann, coordinator of university archives and an instructor of public history at NCCU.
“These radio stations have largely served as a training ground for the next generation of personalities. By offering hands-on opportunities that enhance career choices for students, including mass communications, broadcasting, and other areas. Also, it provided valuable community news and events that transpired, not just in the United States, but also in Africa and other areas as well.”
The preservation efforts also extended to Elizabeth City State University’s WRVS, the first public radio station in northeastern North Carolina, which began broadcasting in 1986. WRVS, which stands for "Wonderful Radio, Viking Style," had 193 audio artifacts identified, and 181 of those were digitized, resulting in over 150 hours of preserved sound.
Similarly, Shaw University’s WSHA, the first HBCU-owned radio station in the country, which went on air in 1963, also had its archives preserved. Shaw’s contributions included historic programming like Margaret Rosemary's Traces of Faces and Places, John Dill’s Justice Speaks, and jazz and sports shows.
Jeffers-Coley noted: “We collected 237 audio artifacts. Of these 237 pieces of media, which included 91 reels and 116 mini episodes, were reformatted, digitized 164 episodes totaling just under 33 hours of sound of Shaw U radio.”
And at WNCU at North Carolina Central, the preservation team digitized 376 audio artifacts, resulting in just under 243 hours of archival content.
“We digitized 376 audio artifacts, resulting in over 243 hours of sound from the studios of 90.7 WNCU, and we also collected 11 World Histories within a week, by three days, here in Durham,” Jeffers-Coley shared.
Altogether, the project has returned approximately 700 hours of digitized HBCU radio history to North Carolina institutions. This preserved audio captures the unique blend of jazz, gospel, R&B, public affairs, and civil rights dialogue that defined much of Black radio's contribution to American media and culture from the 60s to 90s..
The project not only saves valuable audio content from being lost to time but ensures that future generations understand and appreciate the essential role HBCU radio has played—as a media platform, as a training ground, and as a mirror reflecting the voices and stories of the Black community.
