ABSTRACT
The “race problem” is at the centre of Barbara Savage’s discussion of black intellectuals on the network radio program, America’s Town Meeting of the Air during World War II. In this excerpt from a much longer piece, Savage shows that, on the one hand, the mass audience for coast-to-coast broadcasts meant that people of all races were listening, but on the other hand how difficult it was for black voices to find a place on the airwaves, and how hard it was to even broach the subject of race relations on network radio in America in the 1940s. As Savage puts it, how race and racism was allowed to be discussed on radio in the 1940s “maintained a very narrow approach to ending segregation and race discrimination.” The example Savage provides comes from a particular broadcast of this program in 1944 in which the prominent black writer Langston Hughes managed to make some pointed remarks about the “race problem” in America and got away with it partly because of his erudite insights and amicable tone.
