Pioneer black broadcaster
Harold “Hal” Jackson, 96, the first African American voice on network radio, died May 23 at a New York City hospital, said Deon Levingston, an executive at WBLS, a station owned by Inner City Broadcasting Corp., which Jackson co-founded. The cause was not given.
Jackson began his career in Washington, D.C,. as the first African American play-by-play sports announcer. After he moved to New York in the 1950s, he hosted three different radio shows, broadcasting a mix of music and conversation that included jazz and celebrities.
Jackson later co-founded Inner City, one of the first broadcasting companies wholly owned by African Americans. Jackson continued to host a program on WBLS until a few weeks before his death.
In 1995, Jackson became one of the first African Americans to be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Paul Heine, senior editor at the trade publication Inside Radio, called Jackson “the godfather of black radio.”
“His longevity and his breaking down the doors, breaking the color barrier, he really made it possible for African Americans who followed him to work in the medium,” Heine said.
Jackson was born in Charleston, S.C., on Nov. 3, 1915. After his father, a tailor, and his mother died when he was a child, he was raised by relatives in South Carolina, New York and Washington.