Article Published in Religion and American Culture

This week, my article “Coloring Sound: Religion, Race, and Music in Radio’s Network Era” appeared in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. It explores how Black Christians and white Latter-day Saints broke into network programming lineups during the peak of radio’s national influence – and how that shaped how Americans came to hear both “race” and “religion.”

The article is behind a paywall, but if you don’t have access and would like a copy, I’d be more than happy to share it with you. Email me!

Here’s the abstract: During the 1930s and 1940s, powerful national radio networks influenced how Americans imagined themselves and their communities. This article examines how racial and religious outsiders, such as Black Protestants and white Latter-day Saints, infiltrated networks’ exclusive programming lineups. It argues that outsiders used sacred music to carve out space for themselves on network radio, profoundly shaping how Americans heard race and religion in the process. To get on the air and to stay there, outsiders skillfully navigated the demands of white industry executives and multiracial audiences. These often-conflicting demands produced a complex mixture of sounds that both challenged and reinforced the assumed whiteness of network radio and the nation it purported to reflect. Using network records, newspapers, listener letters, and a few extant recordings, the article illustrates the subtle yet integral role of sound in forming racial and religious identities, including the emerging category of “American religion.” It highlights how broadcasting’s so-called “religious ghetto” was home to radio’s largest concentration of nonwhite performers until the 1950s. Examining these marginalized programs reveals a more racially diverse radio audience than commonly assumed, as well as how nonwhite Americans listened closely and sought to influence these flawed yet beloved programs. This history underscores the complex promise and peril of cultural representation for underrepresented groups.

Image below: Gordon Parks, Orlando, Florida. Wings over Jordan, a popular Sunday morning radio program broadcast by Columbia Broadcasting System from station WDBO. President James A. Colston of Bethune-Cookman college speaking to a nationwide audience, February 1943. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8d13672.