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Remembering Jesse B. Blayton Sr.: Black American Media Pioneer

Remembering Jesse B. Blayton Sr.: Black American Media Pioneer

Jesse B. Blayton Sr.,

Jesse B. Blayton Sr., known as the "Dean of Negro Accountants," speaks in 1928. (Photo Courtesy of the Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives)

If making history was a person, it could easily have been Jesse B. Blayton Sr. Not only was Blayton an iconic scholar, serial entrepreneur and civil rights activist, he was also the first to amplify Black voices through broadcast radio.

According to his biography on Black Past, Blayton purchased WERD-AM in Atlanta, Georgia, for $50,000 on Oct 3, 1949 – making him the first Black person to own and operate a radio station in the United States.

Blayton programmed WERD with music and content relevant to the Black audience. He played music like soul, jazz, blues and gospel and had programming that catered to his listeners. Content ranged from speeches and news to plays, church services and educational shows.

He also used the station as a source to disseminate information and support the civil rights movement.

WERD was headquartered at the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge Building, which housed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As a result, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often walked to the station to make community announcements about SCLC’s objectives, programming and events.

Blayton thought it was essential to hire Black staff. He hired his son, Jesse Blayton Jr., as the station’s first programming director. His son then employed four Black announcers: “Jockey” Jack Gibson, who would eventually become one of Atlanta’s most popular DJs of the time, Joe Howard, Roosevelt Johnson and Jimmy Winnington.

According to an entry in the “Biographical Dictionary of Radio,” after Blayton purchased it, WERD went from being $18,000 in the red to one of the most successful stations in the Black community.

It wasn’t the first time Blayton made history. He also broke the color barrier by becoming the first Black certified public accountant in Georgia and the fourth Black person to earn the license in the nation overall.

Born in Fallis Oklahoma, Blayton attended Langston University and then graduated from the University of Chicago. He worked at HBCU Morehouse College and what is now the University of Atlanta as an accounting professor. His mentorship of and camaraderie with Black students entering the field earned him the title “Dean of Negro Accountants.”

Blayton was also the founding president of Mutual Federal Savings and Loan Association from 1925 through 1971 and co-founded Atlanta’s first Black nightclub, Top Hat, in 1937.

While on his way home from the barbershop, Blayton died in 1977. He was inducted into the Radio Hall Of Fame posthumously in 1995.