BW - EP155—005: New York And The 1944 Radio World—Harlem's Fight For Civil Rights

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers Broadcast over WMCA in New York, New World A’ Coming was based on the work of journalist Roi Ottley. Ottley was a journalist for The Amsterdam News from 1931 to 1937 before joining The New York City Writers' Project as an editor. In 1943 Ottley published New World A-Coming: Inside Black America, which described life for African Americans in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. The book won the Life in America prize and a Peabody Award. Ottley became the national CIO War Relief Committee publicity director in 1943 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the US Army in 1944. Meanwhile his book was adapted for this radio series over WMCA, which pushed for equal rights and better racial communication. The frequent narrator was boxer and actor Canada Lee. On Sunday June 4th, 1944 at 3PM eastern time, in honor of Harlem Week, New World A’ Coming broadcast a story called “Life in the Ghetto” to draw attention to the kind of social plights African Americans had to deal with in New York. Two days after this broadcast the Normandy Invasion began. Roi Ottley would cover that event as well as the hanging of Mussolini the following year.